WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.859 Welcome to the Innovation Conversation, a podcast 00:00:02.859 --> 00:00:05.419 about innovators, both in business and real life. 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:08.380 Hosted by myself, Ricardo Rescual and Harry McCona. 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:11.699 This podcast is also sponsored by ODEV Tech. 00:00:12.439 --> 00:00:14.640 ODEV Tech is your premier software development 00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:18.019 partner. Make sure you check them out at odev 00:00:18.019 --> 00:00:22.399 .tech. The podcast is also sponsored by Notion 00:00:22.399 --> 00:00:25.359 .so. Notion is offering six months for free for 00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:27.839 new users. Make sure you check out our website, 00:00:28.039 --> 00:00:30.600 thestoreofevents .co .uk to read in the software. 00:00:41.299 --> 00:00:44.020 Hi and welcome to another episode of the Innovation 00:00:44.020 --> 00:00:46.700 Conversation. Today we are joined by Ahana Banerjee. 00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:48.820 Ahana, welcome to the podcast. Thanks Ricardo, 00:00:48.939 --> 00:00:51.799 it's a pleasure to be here. Ahana, obviously 00:00:51.799 --> 00:00:53.659 it's very delightful having you here. Would you 00:00:53.659 --> 00:00:55.500 like to introduce yourself to the audience, please? 00:00:55.679 --> 00:00:58.259 Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Ahana. I'm the 00:00:58.259 --> 00:01:01.340 founder and CEO of Clear, which is a YC -backed 00:01:01.340 --> 00:01:03.979 beauty tech company. So we have a free app that 00:01:03.979 --> 00:01:06.819 helps consumers figure out which skincare products 00:01:06.819 --> 00:01:09.040 to use and whether they're actually working. 00:01:09.379 --> 00:01:11.659 The app works very similar to a period tracker 00:01:11.659 --> 00:01:14.299 or a diet tracker, but it's a skincare tracker. 00:01:14.739 --> 00:01:17.359 And I started the company in my final year of 00:01:17.359 --> 00:01:19.400 university. I was studying physics at Imperial 00:01:19.400 --> 00:01:22.319 College London. And long story short, although 00:01:22.319 --> 00:01:25.859 I'm sure we can get into the story, Y Combinator 00:01:25.859 --> 00:01:28.459 ended up investing in the company during my final 00:01:28.459 --> 00:01:30.400 year, so I ended up dropping out of my master's, 00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:32.640 turning down my graduate jobs in finance and 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:35.019 starting to build the company full time in January 00:01:35.019 --> 00:01:38.579 of 2021. Professor, sorry. So you'll be the one 00:01:38.579 --> 00:01:40.700 that actually going to make this ugly mug pretty 00:01:40.700 --> 00:01:42.799 again, which is not so... Well, I would have 00:01:42.799 --> 00:01:44.620 thought you brought you to be a user, Ricardo. 00:01:44.920 --> 00:01:47.040 Whatever you're doing is working. Thank you. 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:48.939 But yeah, it sounds quite interesting. So how 00:01:48.939 --> 00:01:51.879 was it? Because this is your first startup, right? 00:01:52.760 --> 00:01:55.260 Well, this is the first, my first full -time 00:01:55.260 --> 00:01:57.859 job really upon finishing full -time education. 00:01:57.939 --> 00:02:01.200 But I did have experience technically in two 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:05.560 startups before starting Clear. Was it very scary? 00:02:05.560 --> 00:02:07.280 Cause you know, you got a white combinator as 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:09.300 well. So that, that must've been a crazy process. 00:02:09.780 --> 00:02:12.240 Ambitious, crazy, bold, audacious, all those 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:15.340 wonderful things. I think so. Yes. I think terrified 00:02:15.340 --> 00:02:18.680 is a fair word to use to describe my first full 00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:20.300 day at work. I mean, that's the craziest way 00:02:20.300 --> 00:02:23.300 to start one's career. my first day at full -time 00:02:23.300 --> 00:02:26.539 work as an adult was going through YC. But I 00:02:26.539 --> 00:02:29.419 think more broadly, I never really imagined that 00:02:29.419 --> 00:02:31.759 I would be an entrepreneur. I wasn't one of those 00:02:31.759 --> 00:02:34.199 people that was born and thought that that's 00:02:34.199 --> 00:02:37.860 how I was going to have my impact. In fact, I 00:02:37.860 --> 00:02:40.139 think for me it kind of goes a bit deeper if 00:02:40.139 --> 00:02:42.520 I go back to my childhood. I was raised mostly 00:02:42.520 --> 00:02:45.319 in the UK so I lived here till I was 14 and then 00:02:45.319 --> 00:02:47.800 my family and I moved to New Delhi, India and 00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:50.659 I am of Indian origin but at that point not very 00:02:50.659 --> 00:02:53.639 culturally Indian. There was such a stark contrast 00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:57.680 in my life in the UK versus in India in the sense 00:02:57.680 --> 00:03:01.169 of In the UK I went to a regular state school 00:03:01.169 --> 00:03:03.750 and suddenly moving to New Delhi I was going 00:03:03.750 --> 00:03:06.509 to this very nice international school, I was 00:03:06.509 --> 00:03:08.650 meeting people from all around the world, their 00:03:08.650 --> 00:03:11.650 parents were CEOs of companies, ambassadors to 00:03:11.650 --> 00:03:13.689 their countries, it was all very high flying. 00:03:13.889 --> 00:03:15.449 But at the same time, and I don't know if you've 00:03:15.449 --> 00:03:18.509 ever visited India, it's a country of massive 00:03:18.509 --> 00:03:20.949 extremes and so on the one hand I was experiencing 00:03:20.949 --> 00:03:24.030 privilege. like I'd never seen it before, while 00:03:24.030 --> 00:03:26.509 also witnessing poverty like I'd never seen it 00:03:26.509 --> 00:03:29.069 before. And I think that just made me incredibly, 00:03:29.409 --> 00:03:31.569 it made me feel this massive sense of responsibility 00:03:31.569 --> 00:03:35.050 of what did I do to deserve this privilege in 00:03:35.050 --> 00:03:37.330 life? How am I gonna give back and do something 00:03:37.330 --> 00:03:39.430 with it? And so I think from a young age, from 00:03:39.430 --> 00:03:42.370 about the age of 14, I always knew that I wanted 00:03:42.370 --> 00:03:44.430 to do something that was meaningful to me with 00:03:44.430 --> 00:03:46.569 my career, using the education that I've had, 00:03:46.789 --> 00:03:48.569 using the skills that I've had, but at the time 00:03:48.569 --> 00:03:50.949 I thought it would be more broadly through technology 00:03:50.949 --> 00:03:53.229 and innovation and science, which is why I went 00:03:53.229 --> 00:03:56.710 to study a physics degree. But when I started 00:03:56.710 --> 00:03:59.750 my degree it wasn't quite what I had imagined 00:03:59.750 --> 00:04:02.210 and I think I'd looked at it very philosophically 00:04:02.210 --> 00:04:04.430 as far as what is physics and you know, how does 00:04:04.430 --> 00:04:07.900 it shape your worldview? but not so much as a 00:04:07.900 --> 00:04:10.060 career and like what are the realities of actually 00:04:10.060 --> 00:04:12.560 being an academic and I realised well it's not 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:14.639 just science there's still politics that comes 00:04:14.639 --> 00:04:16.740 into it there's still grant writing there's still 00:04:16.740 --> 00:04:18.959 all of that fun stuff that I hadn't really thought 00:04:18.959 --> 00:04:21.120 about when I was younger and so I just thought 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:24.480 well I'm not sure that this is the career I want 00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:26.779 to pursue and if it's not physics what is it 00:04:26.779 --> 00:04:28.480 going to be how am I going to have that impact? 00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:31.120 And so then during my undergrad, I launched on 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:33.839 this mission to figure out my purpose from a 00:04:33.839 --> 00:04:36.240 career perspective, what I wanted to do. And 00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:38.459 from the first year itself, I applied to any 00:04:38.459 --> 00:04:42.019 and every internship. Um, so I was applying for 00:04:42.019 --> 00:04:43.839 roles in software engineering and banking, and 00:04:43.839 --> 00:04:46.079 I was super lucky to be in London where you've 00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:48.329 got access to so many different companies and 00:04:48.329 --> 00:04:50.970 so many different industries and so the first 00:04:50.970 --> 00:04:53.329 internship that I did was in software engineering 00:04:53.329 --> 00:04:55.750 at an investment bank at Morgan Stanley and so 00:04:55.750 --> 00:04:58.250 that was a great insight into what is an investment 00:04:58.250 --> 00:05:00.790 bank because I had no idea but also what is the 00:05:00.790 --> 00:05:02.649 job of a software engineer you know like what 00:05:02.649 --> 00:05:04.790 does the day -to -day look like beyond just writing 00:05:04.790 --> 00:05:07.230 the code and I learned a lot from that experience 00:05:07.230 --> 00:05:10.100 but I think the biggest learning was that I was 00:05:10.100 --> 00:05:12.120 probably more interested in the companies and 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:14.199 the transactions than I was in the writing code 00:05:14.199 --> 00:05:16.899 part of it. And so from there in my second year, 00:05:18.379 --> 00:05:20.240 I geared my applications a bit more towards the 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:22.459 banking and consulting internships because I 00:05:22.459 --> 00:05:25.819 wanted to learn about business. And so I did 00:05:25.819 --> 00:05:28.899 some more internships. And then my first foray 00:05:28.899 --> 00:05:30.800 into entrepreneurship actually happened in my 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:33.959 third year of uni where I'd done a few internships, 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:35.779 spring weeks, summer internships at this point 00:05:35.779 --> 00:05:38.660 and like most of my best stories start, I got 00:05:38.660 --> 00:05:41.439 a cold message on LinkedIn and it was from a 00:05:41.439 --> 00:05:43.819 student who was at a different uni and he'd reached 00:05:43.819 --> 00:05:46.300 out to me, cold, we didn't know each other, basically 00:05:46.300 --> 00:05:48.899 saying that he had a startup idea and the idea 00:05:48.899 --> 00:05:51.600 was to build a tech platform that matched students 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:53.720 who were looking for graduate jobs with graduate 00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:55.920 employers and he wanted someone with three specific 00:05:55.920 --> 00:05:57.800 skills. The first was someone that could code 00:05:57.800 --> 00:05:59.720 and build the platform for him, which I could. 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.379 The second is someone who was based at a London 00:06:02.379 --> 00:06:04.959 uni who had access to lots of students and could 00:06:04.959 --> 00:06:07.519 throw events and get them to sign up. And the 00:06:07.519 --> 00:06:09.279 third was someone who had access to the early 00:06:09.279 --> 00:06:11.319 careers recruiters at all of the big companies 00:06:11.319 --> 00:06:13.759 which because of all my internships and coffee 00:06:13.759 --> 00:06:16.279 chats and insight talks and all the rest I did. 00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:19.319 And at this point I didn't know any entrepreneurs, 00:06:19.339 --> 00:06:21.300 I didn't really know what entrepreneurship was 00:06:21.300 --> 00:06:23.620 and I think especially in the UK culturally there's 00:06:23.620 --> 00:06:26.560 not really a culture of entrepreneurship at university 00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:29.610 as much as there should be and I think it's slowly 00:06:29.610 --> 00:06:31.949 starting to change now, but for the most part, 00:06:32.730 --> 00:06:34.930 most uni students are still geared towards graduate 00:06:34.930 --> 00:06:37.389 schemes. And so I wasn't really thinking about 00:06:37.389 --> 00:06:39.529 it from a career perspective, but the job itself 00:06:39.529 --> 00:06:41.990 just sounded like tremendous fun. And so I said, 00:06:42.149 --> 00:06:44.189 yes. And I did it alongside my third year of 00:06:44.189 --> 00:06:46.089 uni. So when you asked, have I done startups 00:06:46.089 --> 00:06:50.290 before? Kind of had. This was the first startup 00:06:50.290 --> 00:06:53.449 job and it was going from super duper early stage. 00:06:53.589 --> 00:06:55.410 I had to do everything and learn everything. 00:06:55.870 --> 00:06:58.769 And I absolutely loved it. It was the first job 00:06:58.769 --> 00:07:01.230 that I completely fell in love with. And so I 00:07:01.230 --> 00:07:03.970 think it had a huge impact on me in terms of 00:07:03.970 --> 00:07:06.209 my broader vision for how I was going to have 00:07:06.209 --> 00:07:08.709 that impact that I talk about. Because I realized 00:07:08.709 --> 00:07:11.389 that actually I do like writing code some days. 00:07:11.529 --> 00:07:14.449 I do like talking to customers some days. I do 00:07:14.449 --> 00:07:16.689 like doing the strategy and planning some days. 00:07:16.810 --> 00:07:18.790 Other days, you know, I just wanted to learn 00:07:18.790 --> 00:07:21.370 as much as I possibly could. And I'm, you know, 00:07:21.410 --> 00:07:23.290 I'm sure you know this yourself, but I think 00:07:23.290 --> 00:07:26.100 when you're a founder, There is no job that will 00:07:26.100 --> 00:07:28.959 teach you more about everything. And so I learned 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:31.160 that very quickly from from doing my first startup 00:07:31.160 --> 00:07:33.439 job when I was 20 years old. And so that was 00:07:33.439 --> 00:07:35.040 really the turning point for me where I knew 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:38.420 that this is what I wanted to do long term. Interesting. 00:07:38.779 --> 00:07:41.000 So it's funny because you mentioned things that 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:43.439 most people never, never mention. First of all, 00:07:43.740 --> 00:07:45.920 privilege in the sense that you were able to 00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:48.019 born in the family, which is completely random, 00:07:48.139 --> 00:07:50.160 obviously, but give you access to a certain type 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:52.779 of education, but also you were aware that you 00:07:52.779 --> 00:07:54.519 had that privilege. You were aware that you should 00:07:54.519 --> 00:07:56.180 make the most out of it and actually give back 00:07:56.180 --> 00:07:58.699 to society and build something with it. And how 00:07:58.699 --> 00:08:00.939 did you get your idea for the startup that you 00:08:00.939 --> 00:08:04.439 have now? Because it's quite impactful and obviously 00:08:04.439 --> 00:08:07.160 applying for Y Combinator, let me rephrase it, 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:09.500 obviously applying for Y Combinator must have 00:08:09.500 --> 00:08:11.680 been a crazy experience. So how do you get from 00:08:11.680 --> 00:08:13.519 the one you're working to then Y Combinator? 00:08:13.959 --> 00:08:17.459 What was that? So the short answer to why Clear 00:08:17.459 --> 00:08:19.860 and why the company that I'm building today, 00:08:20.089 --> 00:08:22.970 my terrible skin. I really suffered with my skin 00:08:22.970 --> 00:08:25.089 all through my teens, still through my 20s. I 00:08:25.089 --> 00:08:27.269 mentioned I moved internationally after India. 00:08:27.269 --> 00:08:30.250 I then moved to Singapore and there was no communication 00:08:30.250 --> 00:08:32.850 between my doctors in different countries. I'd 00:08:32.850 --> 00:08:35.789 be prescribed in some cases the same medication 00:08:35.789 --> 00:08:37.289 but they wouldn't know I've already been on it 00:08:37.289 --> 00:08:39.529 and it didn't work and so I would build all these 00:08:39.529 --> 00:08:41.710 tracking tools with spreadsheets to say this 00:08:41.710 --> 00:08:43.970 is what I'm using, this is what's working, what's 00:08:43.970 --> 00:08:46.320 not and then I was kind of like, I've got an 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:48.279 app to track my period, I've got an app to track 00:08:48.279 --> 00:08:50.580 my diet, why do I have three spreadsheets and 00:08:50.580 --> 00:08:52.940 50 Google folders to track my skincare routine? 00:08:53.120 --> 00:08:55.220 And so, you know, the motivation and the passion 00:08:55.220 --> 00:08:58.419 and the personal problem was always there. But 00:08:58.419 --> 00:09:00.220 in terms of actually starting the company, it 00:09:00.220 --> 00:09:02.759 wasn't so straightforward, especially because, 00:09:02.879 --> 00:09:05.340 so if we come back to when I was in my third 00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:07.899 year working on this graduate recruitment startup, 00:09:08.659 --> 00:09:11.500 as I said, I loved that experience and it really 00:09:11.500 --> 00:09:14.250 shaped me in many ways. But I didn't necessarily 00:09:14.250 --> 00:09:16.730 see myself starting my career with that specific 00:09:16.730 --> 00:09:19.809 company and in terms of my responsibilities there, 00:09:20.230 --> 00:09:22.309 I was doing all of the operations but the one 00:09:22.309 --> 00:09:24.029 thing I didn't do was fundraise because it was 00:09:24.029 --> 00:09:27.289 a family -funded business. That was part of the 00:09:27.289 --> 00:09:29.129 reason that I ended up leaving. There were some 00:09:29.129 --> 00:09:31.210 things that I felt I didn't have a say over but 00:09:31.210 --> 00:09:33.470 I had the confidence that I could do it myself 00:09:33.470 --> 00:09:36.269 one day. But the thing that I didn't have confidence 00:09:36.269 --> 00:09:38.549 about was raising funds and I wasn't in the position 00:09:38.549 --> 00:09:41.960 where I could use family funding. So I just thought, 00:09:42.340 --> 00:09:45.899 well, I'm an undergraduate uni student. I can't 00:09:45.899 --> 00:09:47.820 raise funding. That sounds absurd. All I knew 00:09:47.820 --> 00:09:49.740 about fundraising was I'd watched a couple of 00:09:49.740 --> 00:09:52.600 episodes of Dragon's Den growing up. That looks 00:09:52.600 --> 00:09:55.179 awful. And I don't want to be a part of that. 00:09:56.179 --> 00:09:59.720 So I almost dismissed fundraising as even an 00:09:59.720 --> 00:10:01.639 option. And I knew to build a tech company, I 00:10:01.639 --> 00:10:03.679 would need some initial capital because practically 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:05.480 who's going to pay rent while I'm writing the 00:10:05.480 --> 00:10:09.200 code before I commercialize. And I thought, well, 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:11.740 I've got these great graduate job offers. They 00:10:11.740 --> 00:10:14.440 pay well. I should just take this, save up as 00:10:14.440 --> 00:10:16.200 much as I can in the early years of my career. 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:18.279 And then I will seed fund my own business in 00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:20.639 a few years time. So that was my career plan. 00:10:20.759 --> 00:10:23.340 I left that first startup after, I think it was 00:10:23.340 --> 00:10:27.039 about six to eight months. And I went into, and 00:10:27.039 --> 00:10:28.840 so it finished third year of uni and I had this 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:31.279 career plan in place. I had these great graduate 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:33.799 job offers lined up for when I was going to finish 00:10:33.799 --> 00:10:37.100 uni. Everything was on track. I was happy. Parents 00:10:37.100 --> 00:10:39.299 were happy. I'd found my purpose. I was going 00:10:39.299 --> 00:10:42.000 to deliver on it one day. But then in the fourth 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:45.159 year is when Covid hit and so all of a sudden 00:10:45.159 --> 00:10:49.600 I had gone from working what on paper was a part 00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:51.820 -time job but in hours was a full -time startup 00:10:51.820 --> 00:10:54.740 job. I wasn't doing that anymore. I did a lot 00:10:54.740 --> 00:10:56.779 of charity events planning stuff at uni. All 00:10:56.779 --> 00:10:58.799 of the events got cancelled because of the pandemic. 00:10:59.259 --> 00:11:03.529 I also was And tries to still be an avid guitarist. 00:11:03.649 --> 00:11:04.850 I don't know if you can see in the background, 00:11:05.190 --> 00:11:08.730 but all my music gigs got canceled as well. So 00:11:08.730 --> 00:11:11.610 is that all electric guitars? There is one acoustic, 00:11:11.690 --> 00:11:13.629 which actually isn't mine, but there's one bass 00:11:13.629 --> 00:11:16.350 guitar and two electric guitars, which are pretty 00:11:16.350 --> 00:11:19.149 cool. Um, and so, you know, all my gigs got canceled, 00:11:19.250 --> 00:11:21.309 all this to say I had a lot more free time and 00:11:21.309 --> 00:11:23.309 I'd already secured graduate jobs. So I wasn't 00:11:23.309 --> 00:11:26.169 doing job applications. And I just thought to 00:11:26.169 --> 00:11:28.190 myself, well if one day I want to start a company, 00:11:28.289 --> 00:11:30.570 why not start working on something now? Purely 00:11:30.570 --> 00:11:32.629 as a learning experience, there's no pressure 00:11:32.629 --> 00:11:35.129 on it, I'll still graduate, take my job, etc. 00:11:36.049 --> 00:11:38.690 And so the first thing I did during Zoom was 00:11:38.690 --> 00:11:41.549 I attended a webinar from this random VC and 00:11:41.549 --> 00:11:43.649 at this point I don't think I knew what the letters 00:11:43.649 --> 00:11:46.549 VC stood for because I just knew nothing about 00:11:46.549 --> 00:11:49.190 fundraising so my goal was just to learn. And 00:11:49.190 --> 00:11:52.889 one of the key insights from that webinar which 00:11:52.889 --> 00:11:55.830 was really quite, I don't know if rogue is the 00:11:55.830 --> 00:11:58.049 right word, but it certainly had an impact on 00:11:58.049 --> 00:12:01.250 me was if you're a woman, stay away from anything 00:12:01.250 --> 00:12:04.169 lifestyle, anything beauty, anything wellness. 00:12:04.710 --> 00:12:06.549 And I believe the point that the investor was 00:12:06.549 --> 00:12:08.950 trying to make is that like the numbers are bad. 00:12:09.110 --> 00:12:10.970 If you're a woman trying to raise funding, don't 00:12:10.970 --> 00:12:13.309 make it any harder than it needs to be. Build 00:12:13.309 --> 00:12:16.309 something that's B2B SaaS and you know, that's 00:12:16.309 --> 00:12:19.740 the best thing you can do. And so even though 00:12:19.740 --> 00:12:22.019 I'd had these skin issues for years and years 00:12:22.019 --> 00:12:25.659 and years, and I also am a believer in solving 00:12:25.659 --> 00:12:27.879 a problem that you've experienced, I thought, 00:12:28.059 --> 00:12:31.720 well, this is like my entire sample size of one, 00:12:31.799 --> 00:12:33.360 but this is the only investor I've ever met. 00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:35.559 And he's saying to build B2B SaaS. So I guess 00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:37.940 I'm going to come up with a B2B SaaS company. 00:12:38.419 --> 00:12:41.779 And so like many people did in 2020, I came up 00:12:41.779 --> 00:12:44.019 with the idea to build an AI note -taking app 00:12:44.019 --> 00:12:49.940 called Quill. about two weeks into working on 00:12:49.940 --> 00:12:52.000 Quill and at this point I really had a name, 00:12:52.159 --> 00:12:56.440 a logo and not much else. I again just googled 00:12:56.440 --> 00:13:00.220 how to get funding for startups and I must have 00:13:00.220 --> 00:13:03.519 submitted Claire's name and logo to the first 00:13:03.519 --> 00:13:06.639 five pages worth of Google results for raising 00:13:06.639 --> 00:13:09.809 money so lord knows who has my personal phone 00:13:09.809 --> 00:13:11.830 number, details, all of that. But of course, 00:13:12.009 --> 00:13:13.610 on the first page where there was some legitimate 00:13:13.610 --> 00:13:16.029 results, YC was one of them. And again, at this 00:13:16.029 --> 00:13:18.149 point, if I didn't know what VC was, there was 00:13:18.149 --> 00:13:20.309 no chance I knew what YC was. Of course, their 00:13:20.309 --> 00:13:22.389 website looked a bit more legitimate than some 00:13:22.389 --> 00:13:24.269 of the other sites I submitted my information 00:13:24.269 --> 00:13:26.370 to. And I recognised some of the companies that 00:13:26.370 --> 00:13:29.049 they'd invested in, companies like Stripe, Dropbox, 00:13:29.330 --> 00:13:32.250 Instacart, etc. So I thought, okay, this seems 00:13:32.250 --> 00:13:36.399 fine, let me just... it's worth a shot. And it's 00:13:36.399 --> 00:13:38.879 funny now because I think had I actually not 00:13:38.879 --> 00:13:41.899 been so naive and known what YC was, I probably 00:13:41.899 --> 00:13:43.759 wouldn't have had the confidence to apply at 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:47.639 that stage. But it was more due to my major ignorance. 00:13:48.019 --> 00:13:50.299 I just viewed it as well. It's another opportunity. 00:13:50.419 --> 00:13:53.389 I'm just here to learn. Perhaps being at that 00:13:53.389 --> 00:13:55.429 life stage where I'd just come from, you know, 00:13:55.649 --> 00:13:57.370 interviewing for graduate jobs and stuff, I'd 00:13:57.370 --> 00:14:00.009 just done a lot of applications. So I knew some 00:14:00.009 --> 00:14:02.070 of the basic principles of just be clear, just 00:14:02.070 --> 00:14:04.610 be concise, tell a story, all of that, and, you 00:14:04.610 --> 00:14:06.490 know, highlight the key traction, et cetera. 00:14:07.529 --> 00:14:10.509 And so I filled out this YC application, not 00:14:10.509 --> 00:14:13.389 really thinking too deeply about it. It was just 00:14:13.389 --> 00:14:16.570 one of the 200 random things that I applied for. 00:14:16.779 --> 00:14:19.700 And slowly the rejection started rolling through, 00:14:19.860 --> 00:14:22.799 including one from my own university from Imperial, 00:14:22.919 --> 00:14:25.139 which was, I think, a 50 pound grant to conduct 00:14:25.139 --> 00:14:28.600 user interviews. So when I say that I wasn't 00:14:28.600 --> 00:14:31.340 expecting anything to materialize, I truly mean 00:14:31.340 --> 00:14:35.779 it. They actually said no to 50 pounds. Yeah, 00:14:35.899 --> 00:14:39.240 yeah, yeah. It was, it was 50 pounds. So, but 00:14:39.240 --> 00:14:42.179 I didn't get it. And I thought if I'm not getting 00:14:42.179 --> 00:14:45.360 50 pounds, the prospect of 125 ,000 seems a little 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:49.240 bit unrealistic. But it didn't matter to me too 00:14:49.240 --> 00:14:50.879 much, you know, again, I was just doing it for 00:14:50.879 --> 00:14:53.960 the learning. And two months go by and I still 00:14:53.960 --> 00:14:55.759 hadn't heard from YC. At this point, I'd forgotten 00:14:55.759 --> 00:14:57.919 about it, you know, just thought that whatever, 00:14:58.159 --> 00:15:00.320 it's not worked out. I was not expecting that 00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:02.679 anyway. And then I get an email saying that I've 00:15:02.679 --> 00:15:05.320 been invited to interview. And so at this point, 00:15:05.379 --> 00:15:07.139 I'm like, okay, let me Google this properly, 00:15:07.379 --> 00:15:09.440 figure out what this is, maybe talk to some alumni. 00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:12.340 And the more Googling I did, the more alumni 00:15:12.340 --> 00:15:14.879 I spoke to, I realized, oh, this is serious. 00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:18.899 This is a seriously serious opportunity. And 00:15:18.899 --> 00:15:20.740 without sounding overly dramatic, it could change 00:15:20.740 --> 00:15:23.220 my life if it works out because the thing I lack 00:15:23.220 --> 00:15:25.639 is capital. I would love to be able to build 00:15:25.639 --> 00:15:28.179 my company today, but I just don't have the funds 00:15:28.179 --> 00:15:31.340 to do it. It's very, very hard to get an investor 00:15:31.340 --> 00:15:33.480 to even talk to me at this stage. You know, I 00:15:33.480 --> 00:15:35.960 was just an undergrad student. I appreciate investors 00:15:35.960 --> 00:15:39.230 get so much inbound from founders that I didn't 00:15:39.230 --> 00:15:41.190 really have anything that made me stand out too 00:15:41.190 --> 00:15:43.330 much. So I was just grateful for the opportunity 00:15:43.330 --> 00:15:45.789 to interview and I did my very best to prepare 00:15:45.789 --> 00:15:49.110 for that interview with Quill. There were several 00:15:49.110 --> 00:15:53.470 key glaring errors with Quill as a company. The 00:15:53.470 --> 00:15:55.929 first was the product itself was not very good. 00:15:56.049 --> 00:15:58.029 So as I said, it was an AI note taker. The first 00:15:58.029 --> 00:16:00.590 step of taking notes is transcribing. The second 00:16:00.590 --> 00:16:03.789 step is summarizing. And this was sort of just 00:16:03.789 --> 00:16:06.769 pre -LLMs, and even if it wasn't pre -LLMs, I'm 00:16:06.769 --> 00:16:10.350 not qualified to build an LLM anyway. So the 00:16:10.350 --> 00:16:16.889 speech -to -text algorithm I'd used was trained 00:16:16.889 --> 00:16:20.250 on an American speaking dataset, which meant 00:16:20.250 --> 00:16:24.340 that in my accent, the demos didn't work. Really? 00:16:24.919 --> 00:16:27.379 The way that I was selling this product was I'd 00:16:27.379 --> 00:16:29.299 be messaging strangers on LinkedIn. I'd say, 00:16:29.399 --> 00:16:31.039 look, I've got this note taking up. I'll give 00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:33.100 it to you for free. Just like, I just want feedback, 00:16:33.259 --> 00:16:35.360 blah, blah, blah. I'd get on the call. I'd say, 00:16:35.399 --> 00:16:37.360 hi, Ricardo. It's great to meet you. I'm going 00:16:37.360 --> 00:16:39.460 to show you Quill. We're just going to hit record 00:16:39.460 --> 00:16:41.840 and then we're going to talk totally normally 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:43.820 and it's going to transcribe all of our notes 00:16:43.820 --> 00:16:45.840 and we're going to see a real time summary, right? 00:16:46.159 --> 00:16:48.200 And I would have to put on the best American 00:16:48.200 --> 00:16:50.500 accent I could so that the product would work. 00:16:50.620 --> 00:16:52.360 And then these people would just look at me like, 00:16:52.580 --> 00:16:54.860 why has she started speaking like this? And I 00:16:54.860 --> 00:16:57.919 was just truly terrified. What if YC asked for 00:16:57.919 --> 00:17:00.100 a demo? Like, do I just put on an American accent 00:17:00.100 --> 00:17:02.039 from the start and say I went to an international 00:17:02.039 --> 00:17:05.019 school? Do I just, like, do the accent switch? 00:17:05.099 --> 00:17:08.359 Like, what do I say here? I just felt that there's 00:17:08.359 --> 00:17:10.339 no way this is actually how companies are built. 00:17:11.079 --> 00:17:13.059 But I think the bigger thing was, again, just 00:17:13.059 --> 00:17:14.900 coming back to that impact point, the whole reason 00:17:14.900 --> 00:17:17.059 I wanted to start a company and, you know, the 00:17:17.059 --> 00:17:19.259 thing that really drives me is that feeling of 00:17:19.309 --> 00:17:21.950 doing something for someone else and sure you 00:17:21.950 --> 00:17:25.329 know I was potentially trying to save other people 00:17:25.329 --> 00:17:27.849 from taking meeting notes but that wasn't quite 00:17:27.849 --> 00:17:31.250 the life mission that I set out to achieve. Equally 00:17:31.250 --> 00:17:33.349 though I was terrified of YC because at this 00:17:33.349 --> 00:17:35.289 point I knew what it was and I thought well they've 00:17:35.289 --> 00:17:37.049 accepted me to interview on the basis of Quill 00:17:37.049 --> 00:17:39.210 so I better just give the best pitch for Quill 00:17:39.210 --> 00:17:42.089 that I can. And in fairness to myself, I had 00:17:42.089 --> 00:17:44.089 made a reasonable amount of progress in a short 00:17:44.089 --> 00:17:46.730 amount of time. I had built an entire sort of 00:17:46.730 --> 00:17:49.390 beta version. I had some initial unpaid pilots 00:17:49.390 --> 00:17:52.950 by the time the YC interview came around. So 00:17:52.950 --> 00:17:56.069 I did the interview and again, I'm not sure how 00:17:56.069 --> 00:17:57.890 much you know about the YC interview process, 00:17:57.930 --> 00:18:00.089 but it's just 10 minutes long. So they're very, 00:18:00.089 --> 00:18:02.430 very short. Okay. So it's extremely short then? 00:18:02.890 --> 00:18:05.369 Extremely short. There's three to four interviewers 00:18:05.369 --> 00:18:08.130 and It's, again, I think terrifying is probably 00:18:08.130 --> 00:18:10.690 the best word to describe it. They interrupt 00:18:10.690 --> 00:18:13.529 each other, they interrupt you. It's very fast 00:18:13.529 --> 00:18:15.410 -paced, understandably, it's only ten minutes. 00:18:16.210 --> 00:18:18.210 And so, by the end of it, you kind of feel like 00:18:18.210 --> 00:18:19.750 you've come out of a washing machine, you don't 00:18:19.750 --> 00:18:21.670 know what time it is, like you don't really know 00:18:21.670 --> 00:18:23.970 much, I think. And it's quite hard to read how 00:18:23.970 --> 00:18:26.710 you've done, because it goes by so quickly. All 00:18:26.710 --> 00:18:29.069 that I knew was I had to be available for the 00:18:29.069 --> 00:18:31.369 six hours following the interview in case they 00:18:31.369 --> 00:18:33.410 had any follow -up questions because they tend 00:18:33.410 --> 00:18:35.589 to have a turnaround time of about 24 hours. 00:18:35.670 --> 00:18:37.650 It's really, really quick. And so again, because 00:18:37.650 --> 00:18:39.650 it was COVID, it was all Pacific time. My interview 00:18:39.650 --> 00:18:42.490 was at 10 PM and I had to be around till 4 AM 00:18:42.490 --> 00:18:45.890 the next morning in case of any follow -up. So 00:18:45.890 --> 00:18:48.569 I do the interview. And the other thing I know 00:18:48.569 --> 00:18:50.630 is that if you're successful, you get a phone 00:18:50.630 --> 00:18:52.430 call. If you're unsuccessful, you get an email. 00:18:52.750 --> 00:18:55.690 Now, of course I'm thinking it's never gonna 00:18:55.690 --> 00:18:57.930 work out, like it's already too good to be true 00:18:57.930 --> 00:19:00.269 to get to the interview stage, but there's that 00:19:00.269 --> 00:19:02.769 tiny tiny tiny part that's hoping for the phone 00:19:02.769 --> 00:19:05.690 to ring. So about two hours go by, it's about 00:19:05.690 --> 00:19:08.970 midnight, and my phone vibrates and it's an email. 00:19:09.329 --> 00:19:11.390 So my heart sinks a little bit, I thought I was 00:19:11.390 --> 00:19:13.130 fine, like I wasn't expecting it to work out 00:19:13.130 --> 00:19:17.220 anyway, it's okay. It's not a rejection. It's 00:19:17.220 --> 00:19:20.920 an email clarifying my education and my degree 00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:22.579 program. They were like, what is an integrated 00:19:22.579 --> 00:19:24.700 masters? We don't have this in the US. Like, 00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:26.559 are you an undergrad, a post -grad? Like, do 00:19:26.559 --> 00:19:29.599 you have a degree? Can you explain? So I send 00:19:29.599 --> 00:19:32.099 them the most comprehensive overview of an MSci 00:19:32.099 --> 00:19:35.299 degree that they've probably ever received. Another 00:19:35.299 --> 00:19:37.400 hour goes by, another email comes through and 00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:39.980 it's a cryptic one -liner. How married are you 00:19:39.980 --> 00:19:43.019 to this idea? I thought, you know, like I've 00:19:43.019 --> 00:19:45.200 heard that they ask trick questions sometimes. 00:19:45.299 --> 00:19:47.779 Are they testing to see how strong my conviction 00:19:47.779 --> 00:19:50.839 is? Or do I, you know, are they seeing that I'm 00:19:50.839 --> 00:19:53.420 young and coachable and able to adapt and pivot? 00:19:53.539 --> 00:19:55.599 Which one is it? And so I just went with the 00:19:55.599 --> 00:19:57.799 honest answer, which was, I don't think there 00:19:57.799 --> 00:20:01.819 is a market leading solution yet. If I am better 00:20:01.819 --> 00:20:04.440 suited to solve a different problem, then I will. 00:20:05.500 --> 00:20:08.910 And so I send that to them. Another painful two 00:20:08.910 --> 00:20:11.430 hours go by and finally I get the last long email 00:20:11.430 --> 00:20:13.750 of the night and essentially the crux of it was 00:20:13.750 --> 00:20:16.890 We like you you've made a reasonable amount of 00:20:16.890 --> 00:20:19.650 progress in quite a short amount of time on quill 00:20:19.650 --> 00:20:23.150 But we don't like your idea So we want to talk 00:20:23.150 --> 00:20:25.809 to you again in a week Come up with something 00:20:25.809 --> 00:20:29.549 better Okay, pressure's on ever pressure absolutely 00:20:29.690 --> 00:20:32.569 The whole experience wasn't sufficiently terrifying. 00:20:32.769 --> 00:20:34.930 To make matters worse, it also coincided with 00:20:34.930 --> 00:20:38.009 my final week of term of university before Christmas. 00:20:38.069 --> 00:20:40.109 So I had all of my master's thesis deadlines 00:20:40.109 --> 00:20:44.650 that week as well. And I just ended up sitting 00:20:44.650 --> 00:20:47.170 down and it ended up being only four days between 00:20:47.170 --> 00:20:49.390 my two interviews by the time we got a specific 00:20:49.390 --> 00:20:51.809 time in the calendar. And I just time boxed every 00:20:51.809 --> 00:20:53.690 single hour of that next week to think from this 00:20:53.690 --> 00:20:55.740 time to this time, I'm going to brainstorm. And 00:20:55.740 --> 00:20:57.579 even though I mentioned the skin issues at the 00:20:57.579 --> 00:21:00.799 start, to be clear, I didn't have clear my company 00:21:00.799 --> 00:21:05.200 as my backup idea at this stage. So I set some 00:21:05.200 --> 00:21:07.099 time to brainstorm, set some time to build a 00:21:07.099 --> 00:21:09.099 landing page. I didn't know what it would be, 00:21:09.099 --> 00:21:11.400 but I just said like, at the end of my two hour 00:21:11.400 --> 00:21:13.240 brainstorming session, I have to have an idea. 00:21:13.400 --> 00:21:16.119 I have to do something. So I planned my week 00:21:16.119 --> 00:21:18.819 like that and I sat down during my brainstorm 00:21:18.819 --> 00:21:20.880 and I thought to myself, okay, what problems 00:21:20.880 --> 00:21:22.680 do I understand? Well, I think that's a good 00:21:22.680 --> 00:21:26.200 place to start. But Importantly, and this is 00:21:26.200 --> 00:21:28.619 what I've failed to consider with the quill idea, 00:21:28.920 --> 00:21:31.599 what solution can I build better than anyone 00:21:31.599 --> 00:21:34.740 else? So I wrote down all of my problems, there 00:21:34.740 --> 00:21:37.420 were many, and I just thought, you know, step 00:21:37.420 --> 00:21:41.180 by step, where do I have a unique insight? Where 00:21:41.180 --> 00:21:44.079 does my specific skill set actually give me an 00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:47.039 unfair advantage? And when going down my list, 00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:49.619 The skincare stuff was really sticking out at 00:21:49.619 --> 00:21:51.319 me and I was kind of almost that like demon of 00:21:51.319 --> 00:21:53.940 that first VC that said like stay away from beauty 00:21:53.940 --> 00:21:56.380 and wellness like ringing in the back of my mind. 00:21:56.880 --> 00:21:59.460 But I just thought to myself that it is so hard 00:21:59.460 --> 00:22:02.000 to know which products to use. It is so hard 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:04.500 to know if they're working. This is a huge industry. 00:22:04.619 --> 00:22:08.400 It's $200 billion and there's comparatively little 00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:11.450 tech innovation and to put it very bluntly how 00:22:11.450 --> 00:22:14.490 many skincare enthusiasts are also software engineers 00:22:14.490 --> 00:22:16.450 and would want to build a company like this and 00:22:16.450 --> 00:22:19.509 would be able to conduct user interviews with 00:22:19.509 --> 00:22:22.269 people with acne like me for hours who would 00:22:22.269 --> 00:22:24.750 have industry insights on the products, the brands, 00:22:24.930 --> 00:22:27.029 the trends, the influences, etc. So I thought, 00:22:27.069 --> 00:22:30.569 you know what? I actually think from a pure business 00:22:30.569 --> 00:22:32.410 perspective, this is a great problem to solve 00:22:32.410 --> 00:22:35.809 and I'm going to go for it. So In those four 00:22:35.809 --> 00:22:38.529 days, I made more progress on what is now clear 00:22:38.529 --> 00:22:41.250 than the prior four months of working on Quill. 00:22:41.809 --> 00:22:44.170 I ended up doing user interviews with about 60 00:22:44.170 --> 00:22:46.769 of the skincare enthusiasts I'd met over the 00:22:46.769 --> 00:22:48.789 years on Reddit groups and Reddit threads and 00:22:48.789 --> 00:22:52.049 Facebook groups. I'm sorry, this is all within 00:22:52.049 --> 00:22:55.109 four days? Within four days. Wow. Okay. Yeah. 00:22:55.289 --> 00:22:57.569 And I was just tenacious, just messaging. And 00:22:57.569 --> 00:22:59.730 again, it comes back to the founder market fit, 00:22:59.789 --> 00:23:02.130 which is also what stood out to me that I know 00:23:02.130 --> 00:23:04.470 who my target customer is I find it so easy to 00:23:04.470 --> 00:23:06.970 reach them because for fun I have spent every 00:23:06.970 --> 00:23:09.410 single day of the last 10 years on these communities 00:23:09.410 --> 00:23:12.250 because of my own skin problems and so I did 00:23:12.250 --> 00:23:14.529 these 60 user interviews I built a landing page 00:23:14.529 --> 00:23:17.190 I got over 300 signups for it and on the night 00:23:17.190 --> 00:23:19.309 of the interview I managed to put together a 00:23:19.309 --> 00:23:22.329 very basic prototype and managed to do four user 00:23:22.329 --> 00:23:24.930 demos get some initial feedback on a version 00:23:24.930 --> 00:23:28.140 of the physical product as well um And so I went 00:23:28.140 --> 00:23:30.519 into the second YC interview and Ricardo, you 00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:36.420 can imagine I hadn't slept for a while. I was 00:23:36.420 --> 00:23:38.900 dazed, confused. I'd also bullied a poor LinkedIn 00:23:38.900 --> 00:23:41.059 stranger into paying me 20 quid for Quill to 00:23:41.059 --> 00:23:45.460 prove that I could get a paid pilot. Just for 00:23:45.460 --> 00:23:47.720 the sake of it, just to show them that I had 00:23:47.720 --> 00:23:50.279 made some progress on Quill as well. And so I 00:23:50.279 --> 00:23:51.960 go into the second interview. It's very different 00:23:51.960 --> 00:23:54.619 from the first. There's only one interviewer 00:23:54.619 --> 00:23:57.099 and it goes on for an hour and the interviewer 00:23:57.099 --> 00:23:59.140 first starts by saying hello, which was already 00:23:59.140 --> 00:24:01.480 different from the first interview. There were 00:24:01.480 --> 00:24:03.859 some pleasantries at the beginning and she just 00:24:03.859 --> 00:24:05.420 says, you know, tell me what you want to talk 00:24:05.420 --> 00:24:07.559 about today. And I said, I didn't quite frame 00:24:07.559 --> 00:24:09.339 it as I've bullied a stranger on LinkedIn to 00:24:09.339 --> 00:24:11.579 pay me. I said, I've secured a paid pilot for 00:24:11.579 --> 00:24:14.519 Quill. More excitingly, I've come up with this 00:24:14.519 --> 00:24:16.079 new idea and that's what I want to talk about 00:24:16.079 --> 00:24:19.480 first. So we had an in -depth conversation about 00:24:19.480 --> 00:24:22.710 the idea for Quill, sorry, for clear. And we 00:24:22.710 --> 00:24:24.750 spent a little bit of time on Quill as well. 00:24:25.349 --> 00:24:27.549 And then it ended very abruptly with her saying, 00:24:27.789 --> 00:24:29.910 okay, you've got my email. If you need anything, 00:24:30.130 --> 00:24:34.210 reach out to me. Bye. And I'm like, okay, bye. 00:24:34.859 --> 00:24:37.039 And then I thought, no, this can't be where it 00:24:37.039 --> 00:24:38.960 ends. So I go straight back into my email client, 00:24:39.039 --> 00:24:40.759 literally as soon as she leaves the Zoom, and 00:24:40.759 --> 00:24:43.259 I'm about to send a strongly worded email to 00:24:43.259 --> 00:24:45.339 be like, where do I stand? Like, you know, should 00:24:45.339 --> 00:24:47.680 I apply again? Was this the rejection? Like, 00:24:47.779 --> 00:24:50.079 what was all of this for? Fortunately, before 00:24:50.079 --> 00:24:52.900 I could send any angry email, I received an email 00:24:52.900 --> 00:24:55.619 from her within two minutes. Just saying, are 00:24:55.619 --> 00:24:58.079 you still on the Zoom call? Can, like, can we 00:24:58.079 --> 00:25:00.430 talk again? I thought what more could they want 00:25:00.430 --> 00:25:02.269 from me? I've built them a company in four days. 00:25:02.630 --> 00:25:05.210 So she gets back on the Zoom and she just says, 00:25:05.609 --> 00:25:08.349 yeah, I spoke to my colleague at YC. The batch 00:25:08.349 --> 00:25:10.650 starts in two weeks. Incorporate a company in 00:25:10.650 --> 00:25:13.210 the US, open a bank account, leave your degree. 00:25:14.049 --> 00:25:17.250 See you then. Do you have any questions? And 00:25:17.250 --> 00:25:20.180 so my first question was... Again, just in shock. 00:25:20.440 --> 00:25:22.740 Like I just asked, are you sure? And the second 00:25:22.740 --> 00:25:24.920 question was, which company? Like, do I do the 00:25:24.920 --> 00:25:26.779 skincare thing or the meeting notes thing? And 00:25:26.779 --> 00:25:28.579 she just said it's your company. Figure it out. 00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:33.019 And how? OK, so they told you yes, but you have 00:25:33.019 --> 00:25:35.619 two companies at this stage. One that came very 00:25:35.619 --> 00:25:37.960 naturally and organically. The other one that 00:25:37.960 --> 00:25:40.779 you, I guess, logically would make some sense, 00:25:40.819 --> 00:25:44.420 but not fully. Yeah. How do you how could you 00:25:44.420 --> 00:25:46.099 pick between these two? I mean, what was the 00:25:46.099 --> 00:25:48.369 thought process? You know, it's funny because 00:25:48.369 --> 00:25:51.410 it's such a big decision in hindsight of like, 00:25:51.509 --> 00:25:54.509 which company do I actually commit to? And this 00:25:54.509 --> 00:25:56.490 is where I'm going to give the really unhelpful 00:25:56.490 --> 00:25:59.230 answer of intuition. Something was just drawing 00:25:59.230 --> 00:26:02.569 me to be clear. And I suppose, you know, intuition 00:26:02.569 --> 00:26:05.849 is just pattern matching for, I suppose, more 00:26:05.849 --> 00:26:09.170 intricate patterns we witnessed. That's a proper 00:26:09.170 --> 00:26:12.849 scientific guess right there. That is a scientific 00:26:12.849 --> 00:26:15.849 guess. I think what I'm trying to say is that 00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:19.519 Objectively, I had made so much more progress 00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:23.200 on Clear in a short amount of time that even 00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:25.839 though, objectively, it was a four -day -old 00:26:25.839 --> 00:26:28.940 idea, it was really a 12 -year -old idea that 00:26:28.940 --> 00:26:31.180 I'd been doing the market research for since 00:26:31.180 --> 00:26:34.160 the age of 10, since I got my first pimple. And 00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:36.660 so I think it was just the way that it excited 00:26:36.660 --> 00:26:40.420 me was so different to Quill. And so the first 00:26:40.420 --> 00:26:42.759 thing I actually did, even before the batch started, 00:26:42.759 --> 00:26:44.680 and this is one of the amazing things about YC, 00:26:44.839 --> 00:26:47.299 is you can book office hours with the partners. 00:26:48.119 --> 00:26:50.980 So I was again very terrified of saying, hi, 00:26:50.980 --> 00:26:53.119 you've just accepted me to this program, but 00:26:53.119 --> 00:26:55.359 I don't know what company I should build. So 00:26:55.359 --> 00:26:57.480 can we talk about this and brainstorm together? 00:26:57.700 --> 00:26:59.900 And I kind of just bounced ideas with one of 00:26:59.900 --> 00:27:02.099 the group partners about like the sort of pros 00:27:02.099 --> 00:27:05.799 and cons for going for each. And he kind of just 00:27:05.799 --> 00:27:07.380 said, I was like, I think you know the answer. 00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:10.640 And I said, yeah, I think I do. We're building 00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:14.000 clear. Interesting. And I mean, obviously you 00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:17.019 then had to fly over to the US, get the company 00:27:17.019 --> 00:27:19.920 started, get all their learnings and education 00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:22.960 and all that. And how was the raising funds process? 00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:24.980 Obviously having Y Combinator makes a huge difference. 00:27:25.579 --> 00:27:28.680 Was it very, how should I put this, was it a 00:27:28.680 --> 00:27:31.519 big leap up? Was it a big shock or actually you 00:27:31.519 --> 00:27:33.440 knew what you needed to do and it was actually 00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:35.900 a split process? No, it was the opposite. It 00:27:35.900 --> 00:27:38.559 was the worst part of my founder journey. Of 00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:41.619 course YC helped tremendously. Without YC, to 00:27:41.619 --> 00:27:44.720 put it again very handedly, I probably wouldn't 00:27:44.720 --> 00:27:48.319 have a company. I think to be a 21 year old girl 00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:50.819 who wanted to build a skincare app, which is 00:27:50.819 --> 00:27:52.880 trivializing the whole thing massively, but you 00:27:52.880 --> 00:27:55.140 know on the outside that's what it was, to have 00:27:55.140 --> 00:27:57.160 an investor, especially me being based in Europe, 00:27:57.220 --> 00:27:59.960 to have a European VC fund take that seriously, 00:28:00.019 --> 00:28:03.400 to even take the meeting is next to impossible. 00:28:05.509 --> 00:28:09.609 But that's not down to your skills, that's down 00:28:09.609 --> 00:28:13.869 to their own mindset. Oh, 100%. And so, you know, 00:28:13.930 --> 00:28:17.210 I think the big shock that I had from fundraising 00:28:17.210 --> 00:28:19.390 is that it was absolutely not down to my skills, 00:28:19.490 --> 00:28:21.410 it was to do with their mindset. And that was 00:28:21.410 --> 00:28:23.730 the whole problem. Fundraising shifted my opinion 00:28:23.730 --> 00:28:25.890 on so many things. And I think the biggest one 00:28:25.890 --> 00:28:28.990 was what it meant to be a female founder. Before, 00:28:28.990 --> 00:28:30.829 you know, having done a physics degree, having 00:28:30.829 --> 00:28:32.890 done software engineering internships, banking 00:28:32.890 --> 00:28:35.740 internships, I'd always been in... traditionally 00:28:35.740 --> 00:28:38.640 male -dominated spaces and I think especially 00:28:38.640 --> 00:28:42.119 in education you're slightly shielded from some 00:28:42.119 --> 00:28:44.900 of the realities of the real world so to speak 00:28:44.900 --> 00:28:47.740 and you know as a girl doing physics I was never 00:28:47.740 --> 00:28:50.200 it was never assumed I could do less or you know 00:28:50.200 --> 00:28:51.960 my professors would never look at me and assume 00:28:51.960 --> 00:28:54.180 I wasn't following the lecture you know there 00:28:54.180 --> 00:28:56.839 was none of that whereas even today even last 00:28:56.839 --> 00:28:58.880 week I'd be at an event and the shock and horror 00:28:58.880 --> 00:29:00.740 on the man's face when he heard I could code 00:29:00.740 --> 00:29:03.269 and built the app was It was as if I was telling 00:29:03.269 --> 00:29:05.329 him that I'd flown to the moon and back yesterday, 00:29:05.549 --> 00:29:08.630 you know, it was, you built the app and it's 00:29:08.630 --> 00:29:10.109 like, why is that so hard to, I've been told, 00:29:10.970 --> 00:29:13.049 you're a physicist? You don't look like a physicist. 00:29:13.509 --> 00:29:16.769 And so I was so unprepared for these kinds of 00:29:16.769 --> 00:29:19.210 interactions because I'd always prided myself 00:29:19.210 --> 00:29:23.710 on my competency, on my intelligence, on my academics. 00:29:23.970 --> 00:29:27.140 That's what I wore as a badge of honor. up till 00:29:27.140 --> 00:29:29.220 that point of my life and there was no clear 00:29:29.220 --> 00:29:31.220 sort of gentle introduction to the world of work. 00:29:31.299 --> 00:29:33.440 It was one day I'm a student, the next I'm dropping 00:29:33.440 --> 00:29:35.740 out of my degree and here I am being thrown in 00:29:35.740 --> 00:29:39.119 the deep end. And so I think because of how the 00:29:39.119 --> 00:29:42.299 very first funding I received, how that crazy 00:29:42.299 --> 00:29:44.599 story happened, what I understood from it or 00:29:44.599 --> 00:29:47.460 what I like extrapolated was they were investing 00:29:47.460 --> 00:29:49.140 in me, but they're investing in what I could 00:29:49.140 --> 00:29:51.079 do because I'd proven to them in four days, I 00:29:51.079 --> 00:29:53.539 can do this. Imagine what I can do in four years, 00:29:53.559 --> 00:29:56.339 for example. And so I thought, well, it's about 00:29:56.339 --> 00:29:58.559 the traction. And from those episodes of Dragon's 00:29:58.559 --> 00:30:00.220 Den I've watched, it's about the numbers, it's 00:30:00.220 --> 00:30:03.980 about showing what you can do. So I worked so 00:30:03.980 --> 00:30:07.900 hard during YC to build the app, to get as many 00:30:07.900 --> 00:30:10.400 signups as I could, to try and get as much traction 00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:12.819 as I could. Bear in mind, the company was very 00:30:12.819 --> 00:30:14.880 early stage when we did that first funding round. 00:30:15.539 --> 00:30:18.039 You know, I thought that the numbers would speak 00:30:18.039 --> 00:30:19.940 for themselves. I thought the fact that I'd gone 00:30:19.940 --> 00:30:23.559 from idea to an app with around a thousand users, 00:30:23.710 --> 00:30:26.849 in three months was good and you know I was comparing 00:30:26.849 --> 00:30:29.309 like to like with my peers at YC knowing these 00:30:29.309 --> 00:30:31.470 are some of the best companies as well and I 00:30:31.470 --> 00:30:33.849 thought you know what by like these metrics of 00:30:33.849 --> 00:30:36.009 progress I am progressing probably faster than 00:30:36.009 --> 00:30:39.009 a lot of them and so on the first sort of day 00:30:39.009 --> 00:30:41.009 of the fundraise when demo day finished and I 00:30:41.009 --> 00:30:43.589 was released into the this wild west of fundraising 00:30:43.589 --> 00:30:46.609 I went in with such confidence I thought I'm 00:30:46.609 --> 00:30:49.049 so proud of myself look at what I've achieved 00:30:49.049 --> 00:30:51.930 in the last three months and it was not quite 00:30:51.930 --> 00:30:55.089 the reception that I was anticipating. It was 00:30:55.089 --> 00:30:58.349 a lot harder than I expected. And so, again, 00:30:58.710 --> 00:31:01.009 I think that there were many, many reasons why 00:31:01.009 --> 00:31:04.049 it was difficult. But to kind of give you the 00:31:04.049 --> 00:31:06.730 headline stats, it took me 200 meetings to close 00:31:06.730 --> 00:31:10.049 my round. 200 pitches. So this isn't even like 00:31:10.049 --> 00:31:12.109 the non -meetings, this is just the pitches. 00:31:12.349 --> 00:31:14.630 YC of course helped in many, many, many ways. 00:31:15.130 --> 00:31:18.609 However, of all of the leads I had, none of the 00:31:18.609 --> 00:31:21.799 investors that came into our round actually came 00:31:21.799 --> 00:31:24.160 through YC. These are all people that had been 00:31:24.160 --> 00:31:27.099 following my startup journey on LinkedIn, actually 00:31:27.099 --> 00:31:29.599 me posting about what I was doing separately. 00:31:30.119 --> 00:31:32.859 And so of course, like the YC branding helped 00:31:32.859 --> 00:31:35.279 tremendously. It's what enabled me to start the 00:31:35.279 --> 00:31:37.200 career at this stage of my company. So I'll always 00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:41.000 be grateful for that. But it didn't quite prepare 00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:45.359 me for the realities of fundraising and the dynamics 00:31:45.359 --> 00:31:47.819 and the games and you know, the narrative side. 00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:50.730 I think Again, I went into it very naive and 00:31:50.730 --> 00:31:52.789 I thought, well, I know what my numbers are, 00:31:52.890 --> 00:31:54.789 I know what the guys next to me numbers are, 00:31:55.109 --> 00:31:58.269 so I should win this, right? And I didn't realise 00:31:58.269 --> 00:32:01.329 how relationship driven, how network driven the 00:32:01.329 --> 00:32:03.910 process was, and at this point I just had my 00:32:03.910 --> 00:32:06.369 22nd birthday, it was during Covid, so all of 00:32:06.369 --> 00:32:08.650 these meetings are happening over Zoom. I know 00:32:08.650 --> 00:32:10.529 none of the people I'm pitching, this is my first 00:32:10.529 --> 00:32:12.710 time meeting every single one of them, which 00:32:12.710 --> 00:32:15.910 isn't a problem, but - Of course, when comparing 00:32:15.910 --> 00:32:18.809 me, no matter how impressive I may seem or my 00:32:18.809 --> 00:32:22.609 companies might be doing, if there's an equally 00:32:22.609 --> 00:32:24.710 impressive founder, which there are many and 00:32:24.710 --> 00:32:26.430 many more impressive with equally impressive 00:32:26.430 --> 00:32:29.210 companies, but you've worked together for five 00:32:29.210 --> 00:32:30.930 years, you've known each other for 10 years. 00:32:30.950 --> 00:32:33.430 It's different, yeah. Investors are human beings 00:32:33.430 --> 00:32:35.410 at the end of the day. They're susceptible to 00:32:35.410 --> 00:32:37.890 the same human biases that I'm susceptible to. 00:32:38.539 --> 00:32:41.420 I didn't quite think about this when I started 00:32:41.420 --> 00:32:43.619 fundraising and so I think that there were a 00:32:43.619 --> 00:32:46.819 lot of mechanisms working against me in the sense 00:32:46.819 --> 00:32:50.000 of I had zero network. Really, really, I knew 00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:52.700 nobody and it was just the YC badge that was 00:32:52.700 --> 00:32:55.000 getting my foot in the door for the meetings. 00:32:55.920 --> 00:32:57.920 The second thing is the company that I'm building 00:32:57.920 --> 00:33:01.099 is in the beauty tech space, but unfortunately 00:33:01.099 --> 00:33:03.700 not too dissimilar from what that very first 00:33:03.700 --> 00:33:08.009 investor I'd ever interacted with had said. Unfortunately, 00:33:08.369 --> 00:33:10.250 this does sometimes create the notion that my 00:33:10.250 --> 00:33:12.890 company is me standing in a kitchen like mixing 00:33:12.890 --> 00:33:15.470 lotions and potions together, which is absolutely 00:33:15.470 --> 00:33:17.650 not what my company is. But as soon as you hear 00:33:17.650 --> 00:33:20.630 the word beauty, most investors firstly are men, 00:33:20.809 --> 00:33:22.589 which is another part of the problem that I'll 00:33:22.589 --> 00:33:25.470 come to in a second. The eyes glaze over and 00:33:25.470 --> 00:33:27.410 in the same way that, you know, if the first 00:33:27.410 --> 00:33:29.069 thing that you talked to me about is football, 00:33:29.130 --> 00:33:38.380 I'm instantly probably. Nummy. Nummy. I mean, 00:33:38.500 --> 00:33:39.880 I watched the national team and that's the full 00:33:39.880 --> 00:33:44.619 extent of it and that's it. The point is familiarity 00:33:44.619 --> 00:33:46.559 bias. If it's not something you're familiar with 00:33:46.559 --> 00:33:49.319 from a personal interest standpoint or even a 00:33:49.319 --> 00:33:51.759 traditionally VC backed company, how many beauty 00:33:51.759 --> 00:33:54.619 tech companies are there? There's not enough. 00:33:55.059 --> 00:33:59.420 There's not that many VC backed examples that 00:33:59.420 --> 00:34:01.599 investors can point to, which also makes the 00:34:01.599 --> 00:34:06.329 whole selling the story. harder when it's a space 00:34:06.329 --> 00:34:09.489 that many investors are unfamiliar with. Most 00:34:09.489 --> 00:34:11.989 of the beauty companies that have done well or 00:34:11.989 --> 00:34:13.489 beauty tech companies that have done well have 00:34:13.489 --> 00:34:15.789 only received funding at the PE stages, much, 00:34:15.789 --> 00:34:18.230 much later stage. There's a few examples that 00:34:18.230 --> 00:34:22.130 have raised VC funding, but not enough that this 00:34:22.130 --> 00:34:24.590 is common knowledge for your average investor. 00:34:25.389 --> 00:34:27.969 And so, you know, I think there was that side 00:34:27.969 --> 00:34:32.320 of things that was working against me. And many 00:34:32.320 --> 00:34:34.800 other mistakes I made in my own strategy. I didn't 00:34:34.800 --> 00:34:37.340 know the difference. It sounds so ridiculous. 00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:40.460 I didn't know the difference in process between 00:34:40.460 --> 00:34:42.659 an angel investor and a VC. I didn't even know 00:34:42.659 --> 00:34:45.500 that VCs had investment committees and how decisions 00:34:45.500 --> 00:34:49.159 were made. And so, you know, I would get emails 00:34:49.159 --> 00:34:52.380 from all the top VC funds. I'd be massively flattered. 00:34:52.559 --> 00:34:54.880 I'd take those as my first meetings. In hindsight, 00:34:54.940 --> 00:34:57.039 I would have started with angels. I would have 00:34:57.039 --> 00:34:59.139 built up, you know, got the small checks first. 00:34:59.440 --> 00:35:02.159 And YC was kind of trying to give this advice. 00:35:02.219 --> 00:35:03.519 And they'd say, you know, start with friends 00:35:03.519 --> 00:35:06.260 and family. Just get like 10Ks, 20Ks. Then you 00:35:06.260 --> 00:35:08.059 can go to your first VC meetings and say you've 00:35:08.059 --> 00:35:10.719 already raised 50K. But I'm there sort of looking 00:35:10.719 --> 00:35:12.420 like an idiot being like, but my friends are 00:35:12.420 --> 00:35:14.639 at you. Like, who's going to give me 10k? Where 00:35:14.639 --> 00:35:17.519 do I get that from? You know, that doesn't sound 00:35:17.519 --> 00:35:20.199 like a very viable strategy. So, you know, again, 00:35:20.199 --> 00:35:22.659 a lot of mistakes were made through my own naivety, 00:35:22.860 --> 00:35:25.980 through my own not realizing how important the 00:35:25.980 --> 00:35:28.079 storytelling side of things was. And it wasn't 00:35:28.079 --> 00:35:30.199 just as simple as build a good product and people 00:35:30.199 --> 00:35:33.099 will invest. I struggle to believe you're ever 00:35:33.099 --> 00:35:36.260 bad at storytelling because unlike most podcasts, 00:35:36.539 --> 00:35:38.480 I haven't actually asked them any questions. 00:35:38.650 --> 00:35:41.010 You just keep going on so well, I'm like, you 00:35:41.010 --> 00:35:44.489 know what? I can talk for days. Well, that's 00:35:44.489 --> 00:35:47.349 what 200 pitches in like three weeks. You can 00:35:47.349 --> 00:35:49.030 tell, yeah, a lot of rejection happened there, 00:35:49.269 --> 00:35:51.130 but it's, you know, serve its purpose, I guess. 00:35:51.289 --> 00:35:53.550 Exactly. I've had a lot of practice telling the 00:35:53.550 --> 00:35:55.690 story. And, and, you know, I do look at it on 00:35:55.690 --> 00:35:57.909 the flip side. In the end, I ended up getting 00:35:57.909 --> 00:36:01.130 36 investors on my cap table. And that was a 00:36:01.130 --> 00:36:04.489 mix of funds and angels. And in some ways, you 00:36:04.489 --> 00:36:06.860 know, Again, all of these people I met for the 00:36:06.860 --> 00:36:09.179 very first time and for them to have believed 00:36:09.179 --> 00:36:12.239 in me and my story from that a 30 minute call 00:36:12.239 --> 00:36:15.719 is amazing. And I'm so grateful for them and 00:36:15.719 --> 00:36:18.659 from their support from day one. But what really 00:36:18.659 --> 00:36:20.440 stood out to me at the end of my funding round 00:36:20.440 --> 00:36:22.980 was, and again, I'd come in with this just purely 00:36:22.980 --> 00:36:25.280 on the gender point, I want to address it. I'd 00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:26.860 come in with this belief that it shouldn't matter. 00:36:26.920 --> 00:36:28.519 Like whether I'm a woman man, I should be judged 00:36:28.519 --> 00:36:32.880 on what I do. Fine. So I got to the end of my 00:36:32.880 --> 00:36:35.280 round and just very randomly I thought it was 00:36:35.280 --> 00:36:37.679 just me or most of my investors women and so 00:36:37.679 --> 00:36:40.619 then I just added a gender column to my sort 00:36:40.619 --> 00:36:43.219 of like CRM like investor tracker and it turned 00:36:43.219 --> 00:36:45.920 out of all the meetings I did about 75 % were 00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:47.920 with male investors which is roughly expected. 00:36:49.059 --> 00:36:51.920 In terms of number of investors on my cap table 00:36:51.920 --> 00:36:55.920 over 80 % are female and in terms of dollars 00:36:55.920 --> 00:36:59.519 invested over 90 % of the dollars I've raised 00:36:59.519 --> 00:37:03.710 were from female investors. meaning that my success 00:37:03.710 --> 00:37:07.090 rate with female investors was orders of magnitude 00:37:07.090 --> 00:37:10.670 higher than with male investors. If I'd have 00:37:10.670 --> 00:37:12.590 known that insight at the start of my funding 00:37:12.590 --> 00:37:16.289 round, I would have done things very, very differently, 00:37:16.289 --> 00:37:18.929 but I didn't even think about that. I didn't 00:37:18.929 --> 00:37:21.349 even think that would be a consideration. And 00:37:21.349 --> 00:37:23.150 then slowly I started reflecting on my meetings 00:37:23.150 --> 00:37:25.449 of, oh yeah, like there were all of these investors 00:37:25.449 --> 00:37:27.550 that said no, because they said the market was 00:37:27.550 --> 00:37:29.369 too small, which is also an absurd statement 00:37:29.369 --> 00:37:33.780 because it's just not... but you know it was 00:37:33.780 --> 00:37:35.900 in some ways a stupid question but you can't 00:37:35.900 --> 00:37:37.619 say that to an investor you have to make them 00:37:37.619 --> 00:37:39.820 feel valued and loved and appreciated and and 00:37:39.820 --> 00:37:42.420 so you know i i would be up against this of like 00:37:42.420 --> 00:37:44.300 yeah but do people actually buy these products 00:37:44.300 --> 00:37:46.559 like self -care is the larger trend or makeup 00:37:46.559 --> 00:37:48.840 and i'm like no actually by revenue skincare 00:37:48.840 --> 00:37:50.719 is higher than makeup it's the most lucrative 00:37:50.719 --> 00:37:52.739 of all the beauty segments and on its own it's 00:37:52.739 --> 00:37:55.059 a 200 billion dollar industry so there's many 00:37:55.059 --> 00:37:56.380 things that could go wrong with this business 00:37:56.380 --> 00:37:58.599 the market being too small is not one of them 00:37:58.599 --> 00:38:01.460 and i just reflect i said Oh yeah, none of the 00:38:01.460 --> 00:38:03.920 women I pitched were even remotely concerned 00:38:03.920 --> 00:38:05.960 about the market because it's an absurd thing 00:38:05.960 --> 00:38:08.280 to be concerned about if you know the market. 00:38:08.659 --> 00:38:10.900 So, you know, that there were these small interactions 00:38:10.900 --> 00:38:13.880 and, you know, I think subtle, like subtleties. 00:38:13.980 --> 00:38:16.239 Now, I think because I've just met so many people, 00:38:16.920 --> 00:38:18.860 some people are foolish enough to say it and 00:38:18.860 --> 00:38:21.059 say these things like, wait, you built the, like, 00:38:21.500 --> 00:38:23.360 you know, I think sometimes that it wouldn't 00:38:23.360 --> 00:38:25.900 even register that I was the person that sits 00:38:25.900 --> 00:38:28.440 there writing the code and has done all this 00:38:28.440 --> 00:38:31.219 that has got got the users it's not just a girl 00:38:31.219 --> 00:38:35.360 with an idea for a skincare app um and so you 00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:37.139 know i i think that there were all these small 00:38:37.139 --> 00:38:39.840 things working against me and i was being perceived 00:38:39.840 --> 00:38:43.280 in a way different from other peers who were 00:38:43.280 --> 00:38:45.719 similar in similar positions there was another 00:38:45.719 --> 00:38:48.519 young guy in my yc batch who had also dropped 00:38:48.519 --> 00:38:51.039 out and the feedback he was getting was sort 00:38:51.039 --> 00:38:53.119 of like oh you're this really like laid back 00:38:53.119 --> 00:38:57.280 like cool genius dropout and It was like, which, 00:38:57.280 --> 00:38:58.840 which degree was he on? I'm actually curious 00:38:58.840 --> 00:39:00.800 on this one. Here's the thing. He wasn't even 00:39:00.800 --> 00:39:02.880 a, sorry, like a university degree, high school 00:39:02.880 --> 00:39:06.579 dropout. And he was a, like, and I guess he wrote 00:39:06.579 --> 00:39:10.579 code. So he was a tech guy. School dropout. Okay. 00:39:10.679 --> 00:39:13.139 He was a high school dropout, but he had been 00:39:13.139 --> 00:39:15.019 a couple of years since he dropped out. Okay. 00:39:15.139 --> 00:39:18.500 And the kind of vibe or the excitement was all 00:39:18.500 --> 00:39:22.469 around. really smart guy. I never once had that 00:39:22.469 --> 00:39:25.570 notion. The only responses I got to my dropping 00:39:25.570 --> 00:39:29.809 out was, why would you do that? You're too inexperienced. 00:39:29.869 --> 00:39:32.010 How will you get the experience to build the 00:39:32.010 --> 00:39:34.690 product? I was like, number one, this is not 00:39:34.690 --> 00:39:38.909 what was being said to my male counterpart. Exactly, 00:39:39.250 --> 00:39:42.280 yeah. And secondly, you know, I have a technical, 00:39:42.420 --> 00:39:44.960 like I am extremely qualified, you know, and 00:39:44.960 --> 00:39:48.719 it's, and I'd never once been questioned on my 00:39:48.719 --> 00:39:50.900 qualifications and my competence. So I was just 00:39:50.900 --> 00:39:53.099 really shocked that that was even something that, 00:39:53.099 --> 00:39:55.099 that I went through and it still happens today, 00:39:55.179 --> 00:39:59.460 four years in, if I enter a room where somebody 00:39:59.460 --> 00:40:04.099 knows my backstory and knows who I am, to again, 00:40:04.239 --> 00:40:07.199 put it bluntly. versus not knowing who I am, 00:40:07.300 --> 00:40:11.400 the treatment I receive is so astonishingly different. 00:40:12.300 --> 00:40:15.300 And that's something that I'm really struggling 00:40:15.300 --> 00:40:19.159 to grapple with in just what it means to be a 00:40:19.159 --> 00:40:21.599 woman, a female founder, all of this, because 00:40:21.599 --> 00:40:23.159 these just weren't things that I was thinking 00:40:23.159 --> 00:40:24.760 about. And again, as a founder, you know, there's 00:40:24.760 --> 00:40:26.559 actual business problems and a lot for you to 00:40:26.559 --> 00:40:30.000 be thinking about. But, you know, last week I 00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:32.400 was at an event, they were talking, I was in 00:40:32.400 --> 00:40:34.780 this group, they were talking about finance. 00:40:34.820 --> 00:40:37.119 Again, I've done banking internships. I've raised 00:40:37.119 --> 00:40:39.780 a whole round of VC and, you know, the conversation 00:40:39.780 --> 00:40:42.179 just paused. I was the only woman in the conversation 00:40:42.179 --> 00:40:44.659 and the guy who's much older, maybe in his 50s 00:40:44.659 --> 00:40:46.380 or 60s, he just turns to me, he's like, oh, I'm 00:40:46.380 --> 00:40:48.719 sorry, sweetheart. Like if we're, if you're not 00:40:48.719 --> 00:40:52.920 following the conversation. Yeah. And it's like, 00:40:53.159 --> 00:40:55.219 it's, you know, and I'm not the kind of person 00:40:55.219 --> 00:40:57.900 that likes to have to say actually, no, I, I've 00:40:57.900 --> 00:41:00.000 done this, I've done that and feel like I have 00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:02.599 to say my achievements and accolades to prove 00:41:02.599 --> 00:41:04.699 that I can. keep up with a conversation about 00:41:04.699 --> 00:41:07.340 interest rates. Like it's not in my personality 00:41:07.340 --> 00:41:10.380 to do any of this, but it just makes me question 00:41:10.380 --> 00:41:13.099 like, what is it about me that makes you think 00:41:13.099 --> 00:41:17.119 that I'm not following? It's not about you, it's 00:41:17.119 --> 00:41:19.659 about them and it's about their ability to see 00:41:19.659 --> 00:41:23.280 the world in a different angle. People are very 00:41:23.280 --> 00:41:25.119 biased as you know, they just see the world as 00:41:25.119 --> 00:41:27.159 they see the world, right? And then they don't 00:41:27.159 --> 00:41:30.300 even allow themselves to ask the right questions 00:41:30.300 --> 00:41:33.070 or ask any question to question Is this the correct 00:41:33.070 --> 00:41:35.010 way of seeing this problem or seeing this person? 00:41:36.210 --> 00:41:38.670 Yeah, and to some people's bad luck, actually, 00:41:38.730 --> 00:41:41.090 this has happened when hiring. I remember so 00:41:41.090 --> 00:41:43.969 distinctly one of the interviews I did for a 00:41:43.969 --> 00:41:45.769 software engineering role at my company. It was 00:41:45.769 --> 00:41:47.510 with this guy. Needless to say, he didn't get 00:41:47.510 --> 00:41:50.550 very far in the interview process. He comes in 00:41:50.550 --> 00:41:52.869 and he says, oh, but I thought this was the technical 00:41:52.869 --> 00:41:55.030 interview. And I said, yep, it is. Are you ready? 00:41:55.349 --> 00:41:59.300 He's like, wait, but like, who's doing it? Well, 00:41:59.420 --> 00:42:01.920 there's two people in this hall. You're the interviewee, 00:42:02.019 --> 00:42:05.199 so I'm the interviewer. I'm sure he went really 00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:07.460 far, didn't he? That was a good start. But he 00:42:07.460 --> 00:42:09.780 went as far as to say, he was like, oh, sorry, 00:42:09.860 --> 00:42:11.659 I just thought this was the HR, and he was dumb 00:42:11.659 --> 00:42:14.360 enough to say that. And to his bad luck, and 00:42:14.360 --> 00:42:17.840 to many people's bad luck, our CTO, who I hired 00:42:17.840 --> 00:42:20.679 in a year after building the company, so I already 00:42:20.679 --> 00:42:25.420 raised, and now he leads the tech side. He also, 00:42:25.500 --> 00:42:28.199 he has the same exact degree as me from Imperial 00:42:28.199 --> 00:42:30.719 in physics, but he's actually five years older 00:42:30.719 --> 00:42:33.099 so we never crossed paths when we were at university. 00:42:34.059 --> 00:42:38.659 And he's a white guy and no one has once entered 00:42:38.659 --> 00:42:40.840 a room with him and asked him if he can code. 00:42:41.199 --> 00:42:44.460 That's never, and it's like we have the same 00:42:44.460 --> 00:42:48.139 technical qualification. So what am I supposed 00:42:48.139 --> 00:42:51.280 to read from this shock and horror that I'm the 00:42:51.280 --> 00:42:54.730 one who's built my app? Okay, yeah, that's um, 00:42:55.150 --> 00:42:58.210 yeah, but but I don't know it shocks me that 00:42:58.210 --> 00:43:01.730 people still don't realize that There's no difference 00:43:01.730 --> 00:43:04.650 and they they should expect people to be of both 00:43:04.650 --> 00:43:08.230 sexes To be able to do the same amount of things 00:43:08.230 --> 00:43:10.389 that I mean, I don't get it for me It's always 00:43:10.389 --> 00:43:12.690 shocking to assume that a woman cannot do the 00:43:12.690 --> 00:43:14.829 same thing as a man and they cannot do things 00:43:14.829 --> 00:43:17.010 a lot better than men in a lot of cases So why 00:43:17.010 --> 00:43:19.869 why is this even still a problem like like wake 00:43:19.869 --> 00:43:23.230 up? Yeah. I think it's tough, but again, it comes 00:43:23.230 --> 00:43:25.949 down to pattern matching and sort of deep rooted 00:43:25.949 --> 00:43:29.429 societal biases for the most part. I don't think 00:43:29.429 --> 00:43:34.010 people or investors are any more racist or sexist 00:43:34.010 --> 00:43:36.349 or ageist than your average member of society. 00:43:36.409 --> 00:43:37.989 In fact, they're probably less. A lot of them 00:43:37.989 --> 00:43:40.469 are more educated and stuff, but it's just the 00:43:40.469 --> 00:43:42.389 broad scale pattern matching. If you've been 00:43:42.389 --> 00:43:44.409 working for the last 50 years, like that man 00:43:44.409 --> 00:43:46.409 who asked me if I understood interest rates, 00:43:46.409 --> 00:43:48.849 you know, and if every company he's been in. 00:43:49.119 --> 00:43:51.659 His entire department has been men and the only 00:43:51.659 --> 00:43:56.260 women he's seeing are in HR. He's pattern matching, 00:43:56.539 --> 00:43:59.800 right? And that is the reality of our world. 00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:04.940 What I find to be more problematic is not acknowledging 00:44:04.940 --> 00:44:07.460 that there is a difference in experience and 00:44:07.460 --> 00:44:09.579 the numbers reflect it. It's well documented, 00:44:09.800 --> 00:44:12.599 you know, the 2 % of VC funding goes to women. 00:44:12.780 --> 00:44:15.519 Yeah, it's horrible. It's well documented. the 00:44:15.519 --> 00:44:17.659 difference in how pictures go with the promotion 00:44:17.659 --> 00:44:19.840 versus prevention questions with female founders 00:44:19.840 --> 00:44:23.079 but interestingly even within the community of 00:44:23.079 --> 00:44:25.599 female founders I think there can sometimes be 00:44:25.599 --> 00:44:28.480 two approaches on how you address this issue 00:44:28.480 --> 00:44:32.539 or even start to think about it and this can 00:44:32.539 --> 00:44:35.460 actually be generalized to most problems in society 00:44:35.460 --> 00:44:39.099 of does it help to call out a group for being 00:44:39.099 --> 00:44:41.719 different and acknowledge that there is a difference 00:44:41.719 --> 00:44:44.519 or Do we say that there's no problem and if I 00:44:44.519 --> 00:44:47.420 can do it as a woman, anyone can do it? You know, 00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:49.900 is it less helpful to point out the differences? 00:44:50.639 --> 00:44:53.619 And so I've met many female founders actually 00:44:53.619 --> 00:44:56.840 who have a very different opinion on this to 00:44:56.840 --> 00:44:59.199 me and it's much more, well, I raised this much 00:44:59.199 --> 00:45:01.320 money so it is possible. It's just that women, 00:45:01.780 --> 00:45:03.940 and again, it pains me to say, I've been told 00:45:03.940 --> 00:45:06.739 by other female founders, women aren't as ambitious. 00:45:06.860 --> 00:45:09.000 How many women do you actually know want to build... 00:45:08.940 --> 00:45:11.119 a billion dollar company, how many women do you 00:45:11.119 --> 00:45:12.679 know are actually willing to quit their jobs, 00:45:12.840 --> 00:45:14.619 do this, that, and the other? I know a lot like 00:45:14.619 --> 00:45:17.559 that, actually. Yeah, I was like, hello, you're 00:45:17.559 --> 00:45:23.039 talking to us. But you know, it kind of, I don't 00:45:23.039 --> 00:45:25.900 even think that there is consensus on how to 00:45:25.900 --> 00:45:28.179 best approach the problem because there is still 00:45:28.179 --> 00:45:31.260 some people even willing to acknowledge that. 00:45:32.219 --> 00:45:34.840 It's a problem was shocked me. I was really shook 00:45:34.840 --> 00:45:36.960 to the core that not only it's not not like it's 00:45:36.960 --> 00:45:40.019 a random person It's another woman who has gone 00:45:40.019 --> 00:45:41.920 through this experience herself and come out 00:45:41.920 --> 00:45:43.500 with a completely different learning and I'm 00:45:43.500 --> 00:45:47.059 all for different opinions on on topics but especially 00:45:47.059 --> 00:45:49.800 like now and I'm talking now with this whole 00:45:49.800 --> 00:45:52.780 DEI thing going on and you know all the closet 00:45:52.780 --> 00:45:55.619 xenophobics coming out it's it's actually very 00:45:55.619 --> 00:45:59.139 very scary because there is such a difference 00:45:59.139 --> 00:46:02.340 in how different groups in society experience 00:46:02.340 --> 00:46:06.300 life and to say that, you know, it's, I mean, 00:46:06.380 --> 00:46:09.840 basically, my takeaway from this is, it is objectively 00:46:09.840 --> 00:46:13.559 harder to fundraise. It was objectively harder 00:46:13.559 --> 00:46:17.960 for me to fundraise as a young, brown, 22 year 00:46:17.960 --> 00:46:21.719 old than to do any other part of my business. 00:46:21.900 --> 00:46:23.539 If anything, I thought the fact that I was young, 00:46:23.699 --> 00:46:27.059 that I'm skin of colour, I'm a woman, I really 00:46:27.059 --> 00:46:29.360 understand my target market. These have all been 00:46:29.360 --> 00:46:31.920 superpowers in building my company. The one aspect 00:46:31.920 --> 00:46:34.940 I feel it's been a hindrance was truly on fundraising 00:46:34.940 --> 00:46:38.619 because it is so relationship dynamic driven. 00:46:38.940 --> 00:46:41.340 And it is much more about this, you know, that 00:46:41.340 --> 00:46:43.599 first story, all these biases that come into 00:46:43.599 --> 00:46:47.179 play and investors, again, just being human beings, 00:46:47.420 --> 00:46:50.079 pattern matching, making decisions and the unconscious 00:46:50.079 --> 00:46:54.000 biases take over. You would assume that an investor 00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:57.500 would probably have, let's assume more than half 00:46:57.500 --> 00:47:00.980 of them are heterosexual. So they'd probably 00:47:00.980 --> 00:47:04.219 be in a relationship with a female. If they have 00:47:04.219 --> 00:47:06.039 kids, if they have two kids, the likelihood of 00:47:06.039 --> 00:47:07.739 being 50 -50 is actually quite high. So they'll 00:47:07.739 --> 00:47:09.639 probably have a son and a daughter. And then 00:47:09.639 --> 00:47:12.039 it does make you wonder, do you think that your 00:47:12.039 --> 00:47:15.119 daughter will be less able than your son? Because 00:47:15.119 --> 00:47:16.800 ultimately it comes down to that, right? Because 00:47:16.800 --> 00:47:20.559 if I'm a VC, I'm interviewing a a woman, I always 00:47:20.559 --> 00:47:22.599 think she's someone's daughter, someone's girlfriend, 00:47:22.800 --> 00:47:25.980 you know, wife. So why should I expect less of 00:47:25.980 --> 00:47:30.460 her? I shouldn't, right? It's so true, but interesting, 00:47:30.500 --> 00:47:35.099 you know, I do think there are some, what I would 00:47:35.099 --> 00:47:37.940 call gray areas, and certainly not like on the 00:47:37.940 --> 00:47:40.760 competency perspective, but there was an interaction 00:47:40.760 --> 00:47:43.079 I had with a group of female founders again, 00:47:43.079 --> 00:47:46.099 and it was with regards to a company where there 00:47:46.099 --> 00:47:49.539 were two female founders. They had just closed 00:47:49.539 --> 00:47:52.960 a big seed round and one of the founders had 00:47:52.960 --> 00:47:56.059 just given birth, so had to take a maternity 00:47:56.059 --> 00:47:58.039 leave from this point. The round has just closed, 00:47:58.400 --> 00:48:00.480 one founder's gone for like basically a year 00:48:00.480 --> 00:48:03.119 and their lead investor was not very happy about 00:48:03.119 --> 00:48:05.519 this whole situation. So I was in this group 00:48:05.519 --> 00:48:07.699 with these women and they were saying like, how, 00:48:07.860 --> 00:48:10.199 like, this investor is so awful. Can you believe 00:48:10.199 --> 00:48:12.219 how they've responded to this situation? It's 00:48:12.219 --> 00:48:15.409 her right to have a baby, blah, blah, blah. But 00:48:15.409 --> 00:48:17.889 Ward sort of took Mia back as someone who hasn't 00:48:17.889 --> 00:48:20.210 yet started or especially at that point, you 00:48:20.210 --> 00:48:22.570 know, really far from thinking about family and 00:48:22.570 --> 00:48:25.909 kids. Part of me was also like, yeah, that would 00:48:25.909 --> 00:48:28.030 a horrible VC. Like, of course she should be 00:48:28.030 --> 00:48:30.409 able to have her child. But on the flip side 00:48:30.409 --> 00:48:33.409 of it, I was like, well, if I had a co -founder, 00:48:33.650 --> 00:48:35.730 like, I know how hard fundraising is. I know 00:48:35.730 --> 00:48:38.070 how hard building a company is. We've just closed 00:48:38.070 --> 00:48:41.550 around and then half the team disappears. That's 00:48:41.550 --> 00:48:44.469 a hint. Like, that is a legitimate challenge 00:48:44.469 --> 00:48:46.849 to a business and then you know I reconciled 00:48:46.849 --> 00:48:48.769 with it a little bit I was like well you know 00:48:48.769 --> 00:48:52.409 men also do take paternity leave like anything 00:48:52.409 --> 00:48:55.050 could also happen to a male founder but but it 00:48:55.050 --> 00:48:57.130 was just things like this that I think that was 00:48:57.130 --> 00:48:59.110 one of the first points where I did have to think 00:48:59.110 --> 00:49:01.889 that okay this is like a legitimate biological 00:49:01.889 --> 00:49:05.789 difference for example and it is a fair question 00:49:05.789 --> 00:49:08.789 to ask like so what's gonna happen if we just 00:49:08.789 --> 00:49:10.570 made this investment in the company or even if 00:49:10.570 --> 00:49:13.840 I'm the other co -founder How would I feel? Like, 00:49:13.880 --> 00:49:16.019 what would I do in this situation? You know, 00:49:16.019 --> 00:49:18.599 I think it is important to acknowledge that men 00:49:18.599 --> 00:49:21.760 and women are not the same. We're not biologically. 00:49:22.639 --> 00:49:26.300 Don't believe that. But it's just when it comes 00:49:26.300 --> 00:49:30.079 to some of these broader biases and complexes 00:49:30.079 --> 00:49:33.780 and beliefs that we have, that's where it needs 00:49:33.780 --> 00:49:35.960 challenging. And again, where I really don't 00:49:35.960 --> 00:49:37.800 think it is conscious. I don't think the dads, 00:49:38.079 --> 00:49:40.679 the VC dads out there think that their son is 00:49:40.679 --> 00:49:42.860 more capable. than their daughter. I think they'd 00:49:42.860 --> 00:49:45.219 be horrified if their daughter was the one pitching 00:49:45.219 --> 00:49:51.159 another man and having this experience. I think 00:49:51.159 --> 00:49:53.280 pattern matching is the only is the best I can 00:49:53.280 --> 00:49:56.139 do to come up to rationalize this. And I also 00:49:56.139 --> 00:49:58.559 therefore think that the only solution is that 00:49:58.559 --> 00:50:00.699 when an investor says you don't look like a physicist 00:50:00.699 --> 00:50:02.559 is for me to snap back and say, well, tell me 00:50:02.559 --> 00:50:05.960 what a physicist looks like. Well, that's easy, 00:50:06.119 --> 00:50:08.320 right? White coat and crazy hair, right? I'm 00:50:08.320 --> 00:50:11.880 thinking Einstein. Yeah. What I'm hoping is they 00:50:11.880 --> 00:50:13.920 leave with a picture of me and say the next time 00:50:13.920 --> 00:50:16.079 they see somebody like me, it's not such a shock 00:50:16.079 --> 00:50:19.099 and horror that this person has a physics degree. 00:50:19.280 --> 00:50:22.699 And so I think in a way just by persevering, 00:50:22.820 --> 00:50:25.980 just by continuing on with your journey as a 00:50:25.980 --> 00:50:28.519 founder, doing everything you can to see your 00:50:28.519 --> 00:50:32.500 own company thrive and succeed is solving part 00:50:32.500 --> 00:50:34.820 of the problem from the buyer's perspective of 00:50:34.820 --> 00:50:39.599 the more investors see founders like me. Hopefully 00:50:39.599 --> 00:50:42.159 the more it should help with those implicit biases. 00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:45.260 And secondly, you know, going back to those stats 00:50:45.260 --> 00:50:47.920 about the female investors, I think that women 00:50:47.920 --> 00:50:50.440 in VC have their own challenges in terms of rising 00:50:50.440 --> 00:50:53.739 up the ranks by being a successful founder myself. 00:50:54.159 --> 00:50:56.099 The hope is that one day I can be on the other 00:50:56.099 --> 00:50:58.260 side of the table and I have enough capital that 00:50:58.260 --> 00:51:01.780 I can be the woman on the other side of the table, 00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:04.579 be able to give back. So that's how I see it. 00:51:04.579 --> 00:51:07.460 I don't think it's personal. but it has very 00:51:07.460 --> 00:51:11.039 personal and very real implications on me as 00:51:11.039 --> 00:51:14.380 a human and my company and the way that I have 00:51:14.380 --> 00:51:16.920 to plan and the way that I have to carry myself 00:51:16.920 --> 00:51:18.800 and the responses that I have to come up with 00:51:18.800 --> 00:51:23.340 when I'm dealing with people in the open. But, 00:51:23.420 --> 00:51:26.500 you know, it's all part of the journey. And for 00:51:26.500 --> 00:51:28.539 all the challenges that have come with fundraising, 00:51:28.599 --> 00:51:32.440 I do still have to say that this is my absolute 00:51:32.440 --> 00:51:34.280 dream job. As I said, like I knew I wanted to 00:51:34.280 --> 00:51:37.059 build a company The thing that I wanted to most 00:51:37.059 --> 00:51:40.079 optimize for especially at this career stage 00:51:40.079 --> 00:51:42.679 was learning and as we already spoke about I 00:51:42.679 --> 00:51:45.820 couldn't have picked a better job to learn this 00:51:45.820 --> 00:51:47.960 much about everything and I get to build the 00:51:47.960 --> 00:51:49.820 company of my dreams at solving a problem so 00:51:49.820 --> 00:51:52.159 close to my heart every day I talk to my users 00:51:52.159 --> 00:51:54.880 I see the impact that we have on them on their 00:51:54.880 --> 00:51:56.780 skin journeys and seeing how much better their 00:51:56.780 --> 00:51:58.900 skin is through the app and even my own skin 00:51:58.900 --> 00:52:00.679 journey through the app is all documented as 00:52:00.679 --> 00:52:03.880 well and how much the product I have built has 00:52:03.880 --> 00:52:06.559 helped me. is also the most rewarding feeling. 00:52:07.179 --> 00:52:09.079 And so, you know, on those days where it'd be 00:52:09.079 --> 00:52:11.320 bad pitch after bad pitch after bad pitch, I'd 00:52:11.320 --> 00:52:13.119 always ask myself, like, would I rather be doing 00:52:13.119 --> 00:52:15.900 anything else? And the answer was always no. 00:52:16.179 --> 00:52:17.719 This is actually really funny. This is probably 00:52:17.719 --> 00:52:21.619 the only podcast episode where I honestly don't 00:52:21.619 --> 00:52:24.019 have any questions to ask you because you've 00:52:24.019 --> 00:52:27.170 been literally answer all my questions. It's 00:52:27.170 --> 00:52:29.989 just fascinating. I just want to give my opinion 00:52:29.989 --> 00:52:33.190 on one thing, which is if you're a male VC listening 00:52:33.190 --> 00:52:35.409 to this, stop being needed and just invest in 00:52:35.409 --> 00:52:37.750 female founders because there are tons of them 00:52:37.750 --> 00:52:40.369 out there, great ideas, and it shouldn't even 00:52:40.369 --> 00:52:43.429 be a question. As for the having kids and, oh, 00:52:43.429 --> 00:52:44.690 I need to take some time off to take care of 00:52:44.690 --> 00:52:46.670 the kid, that's perfectly normal. That's how 00:52:46.670 --> 00:52:49.670 we renew society. That's literally part of our 00:52:49.670 --> 00:52:52.429 species is you need to have some babies. So I 00:52:52.429 --> 00:52:54.289 don't see that as a problem ever. And I actually 00:52:54.289 --> 00:52:57.159 think when... because obviously I'm a little 00:52:57.159 --> 00:53:01.019 bit older, but when a woman has a kid, she actually 00:53:01.019 --> 00:53:03.900 ends up doing a lot more things than a guy just 00:53:03.900 --> 00:53:05.559 because she needs to take care of the child as 00:53:05.559 --> 00:53:07.539 well. Obviously the guy also takes care of the 00:53:07.539 --> 00:53:09.380 child, but just it's a lot more on our plate 00:53:09.380 --> 00:53:11.820 and she always delivers. So how is this even 00:53:11.820 --> 00:53:13.460 an issue today? It shouldn't be. But yeah, I 00:53:13.460 --> 00:53:15.019 know that kind of pisses me off to be honest. 00:53:15.239 --> 00:53:16.960 And I spoke with a couple of female founders 00:53:16.960 --> 00:53:19.500 and knowing that they will suffer because of 00:53:19.500 --> 00:53:21.619 that even today is like, no, that's a no go for 00:53:21.619 --> 00:53:26.599 me. But yeah. But again, some of the biggest 00:53:26.599 --> 00:53:29.539 allies I've had are male investors at the same 00:53:29.539 --> 00:53:31.900 time and it's not all gloom and gloom. There 00:53:31.900 --> 00:53:35.000 are so many amazing supportive men and amazing 00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:38.019 women mentors as well that I have and I've been 00:53:38.019 --> 00:53:41.980 lucky to come across. So, I'm still optimistic 00:53:41.980 --> 00:53:43.900 about the future. I think it's getting better. 00:53:44.019 --> 00:53:47.079 In the grand scheme of society, one could argue 00:53:47.079 --> 00:53:49.920 that it's only recent that women have entered 00:53:49.920 --> 00:53:53.489 the workplace, which is shocking. Since, like, 00:53:53.530 --> 00:53:57.429 human civilisation, it's still a relatively modern 00:53:57.429 --> 00:54:00.610 occurrence and so I think it will obviously take 00:54:00.610 --> 00:54:03.230 time for things to level out. But as long as 00:54:03.230 --> 00:54:05.130 there are people that are, you know, the first 00:54:05.130 --> 00:54:07.150 step of any problem is acknowledging that there 00:54:07.150 --> 00:54:09.610 is a problem, which hopefully we have done. That's 00:54:09.610 --> 00:54:12.090 death. And so, you know, that's a step in the 00:54:12.090 --> 00:54:13.949 right direction and hopefully we can continue 00:54:13.949 --> 00:54:17.030 to address it and also, especially in this time 00:54:17.030 --> 00:54:21.719 of such political... happening as far as concerned 00:54:21.719 --> 00:54:25.860 with DEI. I think we just need to remain resilient 00:54:25.860 --> 00:54:30.559 and kind of stick to morals and values. If people 00:54:30.559 --> 00:54:31.900 want to reach out to you, what's the best way 00:54:31.900 --> 00:54:34.820 of doing so? LinkedIn, email, maybe LinkedIn 00:54:34.820 --> 00:54:37.260 DM is probably the most effective way. You can 00:54:37.260 --> 00:54:39.099 just search my name, Ahana Banerjee. I'm the 00:54:39.099 --> 00:54:41.480 founder of Clear. Thank you so much for your 00:54:41.480 --> 00:54:43.480 time. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you, 00:54:43.559 --> 00:54:49.090 Ricardo. I really enjoyed the conversation. Notion 00:54:49.090 --> 00:54:51.389 is offering six months for free for new users. 00:54:51.710 --> 00:54:54.170 Make sure you check out our website, the startupevents 00:54:54.170 --> 00:54:56.829 .co .uk to read them this offer. This podcast 00:54:56.829 --> 00:55:00.550 is also sponsored by startupnetworks .co .uk. 00:55:00.829 --> 00:55:03.050 Startup Networks, it's an online forum where 00:55:03.050 --> 00:55:05.050 you can find all the resources you need to run 00:55:05.050 --> 00:55:07.809 your startup, from grants to investors to tips 00:55:07.809 --> 00:55:09.889 and tricks on how to be successful in your startup. 00:55:10.150 --> 00:55:13.349 This podcast is also sponsored by Odev Tech. 00:55:14.030 --> 00:55:16.289 Odev Tech is your premier software development 00:55:16.289 --> 00:55:19.659 partner. Make sure you check them out at odev 00:55:19.659 --> 00:55:20.500 .tech.