Meet Ahana Banerjee, a young founder defying the odds in a landscape where female-led startups face significant funding disparities.
At age 21, while studying physics at Imperial College London, Ahana turned her struggle to find the right skincare products into Clear—an app that makes buying, tracking, and sharing skincare products both intuitive and engaging.
I recently sat down with Ahana to discuss her Startup Journey as part of season 1 of our podcast series with successful founders. She shared how Clear grew from a dorm room project into a thriving business.
Like many female founders, she faced significant hurdles, including being “often dismissed due to her gender.” Unfortunately, this is not uncommon considering broader industry trends, where female entrepreneurs are 63% less likely than men to obtain venture capital financing.
Despite these challenges, Ahana’s determination led to remarkable success: she earned a spot in Y Combinator, secured funding from Silicon Valley’s leading VCs (gaining over $965k at pre-seed), and made Forbes 30 Under 30—all before her peers had begun their first jobs.
Today, Clear is transforming how people approach skincare worldwide, joining the ranks of female-led businesses that tend to be more profitable and innovative.
Read on to discover how Ahana turned an idea into a globally acclaimed enterprise—or listen to the conversation below.
Contents
About Ahana & Clear
Rui: To start, how did your journey into entrepreneurship begin?
Ahana: Like many entrepreneurs, my journey wasn’t exactly straightforward. I thought I would become a physicist for most of my life—that was my path. I went on to study physics at university, fully intending to have a career in academia.
While I wanted to make an impact through scientific research, my university experience helped me realize that academia might not be the best path for me.
Being proactive, I pursued various internships in London—from software engineering to banking. Through LinkedIn outreach, I unexpectedly connected with a startup founder who wanted my skills on their team. Despite knowing nothing about startups, I accepted because I enjoyed building things.
Though I initially saw this as just experience before joining a prestigious firm like Goldman Sachs, it became my first true passion. The role let me use all my skills—coding, communication, and strategy—while creating a tangible impact.
This experience transformed my perspective on making a difference. However, I still didn’t see founding a company as viable, given my lack of fundraising knowledge and industry connections. I planned to take a traditional career path first—though things ultimately worked out differently, this journey led me to discover entrepreneurship was my calling.
Dealing with Bias as a Young Entrepreneur
Rui: I’ve worked with many founders in my career, and data shows successful entrepreneurs are often in their forties – they have networks, savings, and expertise. But young founders have unique opportunities too. What advice would you give to young entrepreneurs starting out?
Ahana: Being a young founder has key advantages. The main one is timing—with minimal responsibilities like mortgages or children, you can fully commit to entrepreneurship. Living on a student budget also makes the financial risk more manageable.
While entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone, starting young lets you dedicate your undivided attention to your company. This focused energy becomes a competitive edge—you can invest more time than those juggling multiple commitments.
Traditional industry expertise isn’t always necessary. For example, I’m building for my peers, so I naturally understand their needs and trends. This helps during user interviews and product development since I’m experiencing the same challenges.
My decade of personal experience with skincare proves that expertise can come from lived experience, not just formal training.
Young founders today are increasingly driven by impact over profit. We want meaningful work that creates visible change—whether for users, customers, or team culture.
Starting your career with this passion and purpose, even with some naive optimism, keeps you motivated because you’re doing meaningful work from day one.
Rui: I want to touch on something that we discussed earlier when we were doing the session prep for this interview. You mentioned that, unfortunately, you faced some gender bias as you began your entrepreneurial career. Can you share a bit about that and how you overcame it?
Ahana: Absolutely. My perspective on this has evolved significantly over the past two years while building the company.
Before this experience, I didn’t believe in discussing gender bias. Coming from a technical degree where I was one of few women, and having interests like gaming and rock music where women were also a minority, I never felt my gender, age, or ethnicity held me back.
I thought highlighting these differences was counterproductive. When I decided to start my company, I didn’t consider being young, brown, or female—I simply asked myself, “Can I build this company?” The answer was yes, so I went for it. However, fundraising was where I first noticed things weren’t quite equal.
Fresh out of Y Combinator—which was incredible and helped with fundraising strategy—I still had much to learn. Like many founders, I’d watched Dragon’s Den and thought the formula was simple: build a good product, get good numbers, then pitch.
That’s exactly what I did. I focused entirely on building the best product and business possible. When fundraising began, I felt optimistic, knowing our strong metrics and rapid progress compared to other pitching companies.
Halfway through my funding round, after about a hundred meetings, I noticed something striking—most of my investors were women. I checked my investor tracker, where I documented everything from firms and check sizes to geographies and sectors.
Gender hadn’t been a consideration before, but when I analyzed the data, I found that while 75% of investors I met were male, over 80% of those who invested were female. Even more telling, 90% of our capital came from female investors.
This vast difference in success rates with female versus male investors wasn’t something I’d planned for. As I learned more about fundraising dynamics, these patterns began to make sense.
My key insight isn’t that investors are deliberately racist or sexist. Rather, when making major decisions with limited information and time, unconscious biases emerge. The VC ecosystem’s structure creates inherent unfairness, leading to poor statistics for founders like me.
Yes, I encountered some explicit discrimination—instances of sexism, ageism, and racism—but these were rare. In 200+ pitches, you’ll naturally meet a few difficult people. Most investors are well-intentioned and understand that diversity drives profits, creates great companies, and generates innovative ideas.
What’s particularly striking is that despite my advantages—excellent education, supportive family, and Y Combinator backing—fundraising was still incredibly challenging. It’s no surprise that fewer women pursue VC funding. The standards differ between men and women, right down to the questions we’re asked. The ecosystem needs significant reform to level the playing field.
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The Drive Behind Building Clear
Rui: Yes, exactly. These conversations are crucial. I appreciate your balanced view – while some outliers may show bias, most investors aren’t deliberately discriminatory.
The real issue lies in unconscious patterns. Investors need to recognize that young women founders, though underrepresented, are just as capable of building transformative companies.
When these innovations benefit thousands globally, we can’t rely on surface judgments. My message to investors is simple: evaluate everyone equally. Those who dismissed you missed a valuable opportunity by not seeing your potential. That’s something every investor understands.
They weren’t wrong for being unfair – they were wrong for missing an excellent investment.
Now, tell me about Clear. You’ve spent over a decade in this space. What drove you to build this company?
Ahana: Clear is a skincare tech platform that helps users choose and track effective products. My journey began with personal skin struggles at age 12. Despite trying everything from dermatologists to extreme diets and Ayurvedic medicine, my skin remained problematic.
Without family members sharing similar issues, I had to find solutions independently. I dove into online communities—YouTube, Facebook groups, and Reddit—where millions faced the same challenges.
The complexity of skincare led me to create a detailed spreadsheet tracking system. While others used similar methods, the manual process was cumbersome. I wondered why no technology existed for this purpose, especially when we have apps for tracking everything else from periods to sleep.
The market’s overwhelming product choices led me to recognize the power of community recommendations. However, I noticed a critical flaw in existing platforms: advice often came from users with different skin types, making their recommendations less relevant.
Clear solves this by connecting users with their “skin twins”—people matching their skin colour, type, concerns, age, and location. Our platform aggregates community data to provide personalized recommendations, effectively scaling the dermatologist approach to serve tens of thousands of users.
Clear’s Market Landscape
Rui: This feels like one of those ideas that seems obvious in hindsight, right? So why wasn’t there a solution before?
Did no one else try to solve this problem, or were there competitors from the start who just couldn’t gain traction? What did the market landscape look like?
Ahana: Yes, there were several skincare apps on the market—I tried them all before creating Clear. Clear wasn’t my first startup idea. Initially, I worked on a B2B solution because I thought I needed to tackle a “serious” space to be taken seriously as a founder. While there were existing apps, they each had different limitations.
Some apps focused solely on tracking, but they had significant shortcomings. After analyzing these apps and their teams, I discovered that none of the tracking apps were built by true skincare enthusiasts—and it showed. Basic features were missing, like separate morning and evening routines or the ability to arrange products in order of application. These are fundamental needs for anyone serious about skincare.
The lack of proper tracking capabilities was frustrating, as was the limited product database. Many popular products weren’t even listed on these platforms, making them clunky to use. Despite trying multiple apps, I couldn’t stick with any of them because the user experience was poor.
There were also apps focused on ingredient analysis—scan a product, and they’d break down what’s in it. But no app combined tracking with a social element. I’d used platforms like Strava, where you track your runs and share them with a community, and I saw clear parallels with skincare. I was already tracking my routine on spreadsheets and sharing updates with my doctor and friends.
My theory about why this hasn’t been done successfully before is simple: there aren’t enough skincare enthusiasts who also code and want to build companies. It seems like such an obvious idea—whenever I explain it, people ask, “Why hasn’t this been done before?” I just tell them, “Well, your guess is as good as mine, but here I am. Try the app!”
Validating the Idea & Building the Product
Rui: It’s fascinating how many opportunities go untapped simply because people lack the resources and support to pursue them. This is a loss both for those individuals and the industry.
Your story is inspiring—you seized the opportunity despite the odds, showing others they shouldn’t let investor scepticism hold them back.
How did you go about validating the idea and building your first product version? Were you solo at the start, or did you have help in those early days?
Ahana: I treated the initial validation process as a scientific experiment. In my previous venture—a B2B SaaS meeting minutes app—I’d made the critical error of diving into product development without user interviews. When it came time to sell, I was completely lost, with no understanding of my target market, their needs, or potential objections.
That experience taught me the vital importance of user feedback. When I joined YC early in my journey with Clear, their mantra “Write code, talk to users” reinforced this mindset. Before writing a single line of code, I immersed myself in understanding the landscape. Though I had my skincare journey, I knew my experience wasn’t universal.
I began by building a beta community through Facebook. I reached out to connections I’d made over the years with a simple message: “Hey, I want to chat about your skin. I can code, and I’m thinking of building something, though I’m not sure what yet.”
The initial concept for Clear was an AI recommendations app—scan your face, and get product suggestions. To validate this, I identified key assumptions: Would users feel comfortable scanning their faces? Would they trust AI recommendations? Did they need help choosing products? I prioritized these assumptions and assessed my confidence in each. User trust in AI, while crucial for success, was my biggest uncertainty.
To test these assumptions, I crafted non-leading questions. Instead of asking directly about AI trust, I explored how people make decisions about skincare products, holidays, and fashion items.
Through extensive user interviews, I built a community of 300 skincare enthusiasts before writing any code. Their feedback shaped the product’s evolution. A crucial discovery was that users wanted to understand the reasoning behind product recommendations rather than blindly trust AI. This insight led me to pivot toward a community-driven platform where users could connect with others sharing similar skin types.
I spent three months on this process, refining the concept until no new insights emerged. Only then did I begin building the MVP.
The MVP took a month to build. Despite its limitations—a small product database and some bugs—our strong beta community and thorough research gave me confidence in the vision. After another month of private iterations, we were ready to launch.
Following YC’s “launch early and iterate” philosophy, we went live despite the rough edges. My deep discomfort with launching in that state signalled it was the right time.
The Y Combinator Experience
Rui: That’s exactly right—if you’re not embarrassed by your first launch, you launched too late. It’s surprising how many founders build their products before ever talking to potential customers. That’s a recipe for failure.
I’m impressed that you took the time to understand people’s pain points and build with the market. This approach must have saved you countless hours in later iterations. Early validation, customer conversations, and understanding why existing solutions fall short are all crucial steps.
You’re a Y Combinator alum who went through the accelerator with Clear—that’s remarkable, especially since you were juggling college and working on the app part-time. Given that YC typically requires a full-time commitment and demonstrated traction, I’m curious: what inspired you to apply, and how did you make it happen?
Ahana: Thank you! It’s a question I ask myself daily—how did I trick them into letting me in?
My journey with YC was unexpected. I was still a student when I got my first startup job, which sparked my desire to build something of my own. But with no knowledge of fundraising, I put the startup dream on hold.
Fast forward to my fourth year at university in the summer of 2020. When COVID hit, everything I loved outside of academics—charity work, my rock band—came to a halt. With all this newfound free time, I thought, “I need something alongside my degree. Just studying physics will drive me mad.”
I started working on an idea just for the experience, planning to take a graduate job afterwards. The concept came from my banking internships, where I hated being the designated note-taker. I thought, “I’ve worked too hard to be a professional note-taker,” and decided to build a tool to solve that problem.
I knew nothing about venture capital but had heard B2B SaaS was easier to monetize. So I thought, “Perfect, I’ll build something to solve this meeting notes problem.” I didn’t validate the idea or speak to users—I just created a logo, name, and one-liner.
That’s when I decided to apply to YC. I didn’t fully understand what YC was but figured I had nothing to lose. My friends laughed, especially those who knew YC’s reputation. I didn’t care—I’d always been the type to apply for everything and figure it out later.
Two months after applying, I got an interview invitation. That’s when I properly researched YC and realized its significance. I spent the next few weeks preparing intensely, speaking with YC alumni, and building as much traction as possible.
The interview was remote due to COVID-19—a 10-minute, no-nonsense session. I couldn’t tell if they liked me, hated me, or even understood the idea. Afterwards, I had to stay up until 4 a.m. for potential follow-up questions.
The first follow-up asked about my degree status. Later, they inquired about my time working on the idea and whether I was full-time. Then came a crucial question: “How married are you to this idea?”
I’d heard this could be a trick question. Too committed might suggest being uncoachable; not committed enough might show a lack of conviction. I answered honestly: “I think it’s a cool idea, but if there’s a better problem I’m suited to solve, I’ll pursue that instead.”
Finally, at 4 a.m., they emailed: “We like you, but we don’t like your idea. Come back in a week with something better.”
That week, I worked harder than ever—brainstorming, conducting user interviews, building a basic website, and creating a waitlist. The breakthrough came during a bathroom break, of all places. While looking at my skincare products and watching a skincare YouTuber, it hit me: I’d spent 10 years as a consumer in this massive industry that had plenty of money but little technical innovation. I could do something here.
In four days, I made more progress on Clear than I had in six months on my previous idea. At the second interview, I pitched the new concept. It ended abruptly with: “Batch starts in two weeks. Incorporate a company in the U.S., open a bank account, leave your degree, and see you then.”
I was shocked. My first question was, “Are you sure?” My second was, “Which idea? The meeting notes app or the skincare app?” Their response: “It’s your company. Figure it out.”
So, I left my master’s program and committed full-time to Clear. That moment changed everything for me, and I wouldn’t be here today if it hadn’t happened.
Rui: I can clearly see why they decided to bet on you. Could you share a bit about the key benefits you gained from Y Combinator?
Ahana: Although I did YC during the remote batches, they’re back in person now, and I gained immensely from the experience. The biggest benefit, by far, was the community.
YC has an exceptional eye for talent. The people I met were unlike anyone I’d encountered before. While many were accomplished second or third-time founders with successful exits, what stood out was their humility and genuine desire to help others.
The YC WhatsApp group remains my most active chat even two years later. The community is vast, and someone has invariably faced your current challenge and is ready to help. This lifelong support network is invaluable.
The structured program itself is incredibly powerful. You get group partners who deeply understand your company and guide you through the journey. When I joined YC, Clear was just an idea with a four-day prototype—we had so much work ahead.
The program focuses intensely on fundamentals, which proves valuable at any stage. I learned crucial principles like tracking retention, avoiding premature scaling, and running a lean business. Since I hadn’t spent years in big companies, I had no bad habits to unlearn and could embrace efficient operations from day one.
YC instils a powerful rhythm of pace and accountability. Weekly goal-setting forces you to reflect on successes and failures. This discipline became second nature and still guides how I run Clear—staying lean, watching spending, focusing on what matters, and ignoring vanity metrics.
Their insights come from years of pattern recognition across thousands of startups. They understand what works and what doesn’t, and they share this knowledge generously.
I particularly value how YC makes its wisdom accessible through Startup School and public videos. I still reference these resources for best practices on everything from retention metrics to growth strategies. They’ve transformed the startup ecosystem, empowering countless founders to build better companies.
YC changed my life. They took the first bet on me, enabling me to build a company at this stage in my career. They’re a remarkable group of people driven by a genuine mission to create a positive impact and empower founders to do the same.
Acquiring Early Adopters
Rui: Let’s talk about early adopters. You mentioned building a community first, and I’m assuming that was critical to your success.
By the time you launched, you already had a waiting list of people ready to use the product. Can you share the strategy behind acquiring those all-important first users?
Ahana: Absolutely. The first step was identifying the “watering holes”—the places where my target audience hangs out, both online and offline. Since my audience was primarily online and I’d spent years in those communities, they were the natural starting point.
I began posting in Facebook groups and Reddit threads, but it wasn’t straightforward. Most communities don’t allow self-promotion—you can’t just say, “Hey, I’m a YC-backed founder building this game-changing skincare app—download it!” I learned that lesson the hard way after getting banned.
Engaging these communities required finesse. From day one, I conducted user interviews. While not scalable, this approach built trust and relationships, particularly with admins of large skincare groups. Instead of sales pitches, I sent genuine requests to discuss their skincare journeys, mentioning that I was exploring ways to help people like us.
These early relationships transformed users into ambassadors. When it came time to promote the app, they championed our vision because they’d witnessed our journey—from the roughest early versions to steady improvements based on their feedback.
Beyond community building, I reached out to everyone I knew personally. I sent Facebook messages to friends I hadn’t spoken to in years, asking them to try the app. It was uncomfortable—some ignored me, others declined, and a few even unfriended me. But some said yes, and I even rekindled old friendships.
This experience taught me to embrace discomfort. As a founder, you constantly operate outside your comfort zone, and learning to handle rejection becomes crucial. Every user mattered in those early days, and I was determined to do whatever it took.
I also got creative with other strategies, commenting on YouTube videos, Instagram influencers’ posts, and anywhere else I could engage potential users. These tactics were time-consuming and unglamorous, but they worked.
Even now, we haven’t spent money on marketing or hired a marketing person—it’s still a zero-budget operation. I’ve embraced social media, despite not being active before starting the company. LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter have worked well, and I’ve pushed myself to create content for these platforms.
Not everything succeeded. On TikTok, I posted four videos daily for a month without getting a single download. But that’s part of the process—you experiment widely, stick with what works, and abandon what doesn’t. The early days are all about swallowing your pride, getting scrappy, and asking for help. It’s not glamorous, but it’s essential.
Rui: Building relationships requires accepting rejection – it’s a fundamental founder skill that applies to investors, hires, and customers alike.
Early growth often means doing non-scalable things, from YouTube comments to direct outreach. You have to do whatever it takes to reach your audience.
As for marketing, founders should lead these efforts initially. Only bring in specialists once you’ve figured out what works and are ready to scale strategically.
Consider experimenting with skincare micro-influencer podcasts – their communities could be valuable for growth.
Ahana: We actually tried that!
Rui: You did? How did it go?
Ahana: Not great, honestly. We experimented with Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse during their peak, inviting brand owners and micro-influencers to join. The platform choice was the main issue. Twitter Spaces isn’t popular anymore, and back then, we couldn’t save the recordings from repurposing for YouTube or other channels.
We’re thinking about revisiting the concept properly in the future—perhaps as a podcast—once user acquisition becomes our main priority. I’ll definitely need your advice when we’re ready to do it right.
The Path to Product-Market Fit
Rui: I agree about doing non-scalable work early on – from YouTube comments to direct outreach, you do what it takes. Founders should lead marketing initially and only bring in specialists once they’ve proven what works.
Now, tell me about your path to product-market fit. What were the key milestones between the launch and realizing you had something special?
Ahana: Let me clarify—raising money had little to do with product-market fit for us. Many companies raise funds at the idea stage, and our funding round was more about vision and strategy than PMF. Looking back, I’d do many things differently with that round.
Our first real signal came during early validation, even before launch. In those first three months of testing, I was amazed at how quickly we iterated toward what Clear became. People I’d never met spent hours discussing their skincare frustrations with me—that was a powerful sign. Some of those early testers became friends because they were so invested in making this work. They genuinely needed a solution.
Another breakthrough came when a stranger messaged me on Twitter about the value they’d found in the app. They said Clear was exactly what they’d been seeking—a safe space to share their skincare journey and get helpful recommendations. I was shocked because until then, I thought every user was someone I’d personally recruited. That unsolicited feedback validated we were on the right track.
The third milestone involved partnerships. After our funding round, I began working with brands—an area investors had doubted. Many questioned whether brands would engage with us, but as I spoke with them, it became clear they were eager for innovation. Winning a competition with L’Oréal proved decisive—their CMO is now one of our advisors. This enthusiasm from industry insiders confirmed we were solving a real problem.
Still, I’d say we’re a pre-product-market fit. Yes, we have validation from users and brands, with hundreds of devoted users, but our overall retention metrics need improvement. That’s why we’re holding off on marketing. We’re laser-focused on improving the product until we hit our retention targets.
We’re releasing new features weekly and moving steadily toward our goals. The metrics are trending up, but we have work ahead. I’m optimistic about our direction—that’s why I’m still writing code daily and talking to users to make Clear even better.
The Early-Stage Startup Team
Rui: Interesting that you handle both code and user interactions – that’s uncommon.
I agree about fixing retention before scaling. You’ll be in a much better position to grow once the product is solid.
Speaking of which – tell me about your early team. Given your hands-on approach with coding and users, were you solo or did you have help?
Ahana: In the very early days, I had a co-founder—a friend from university who was one of the smartest people in our year, studying physics and passionate about startups.
However, since we hadn’t worked together before, and despite him being a great person, his potential role in the company wasn’t well-defined. We eventually realized we weren’t the right match as co-founders and parted ways amicably. He returned to complete his degree and is now about to start a new position at another startup, so everything worked out well for both of us.
When it came to day-to-day execution, though, I was largely on my own at the beginning. It was quite isolating, and I had to shoulder most of the responsibility.
Rui: So you built the MVP yourself? You were the one writing the code?
Ahana: Yes, that’s right. However, to be honest, I wasn’t entirely alone in the coding process. I convinced everyone I knew to help—my flatmate, and my boyfriend—and they all contributed to the codebase at various points. I joke that persuading people who were better coders than me became a core part of my development process! But they weren’t official team members—just very generous flatmates and friends.
A Day-in-the-Life of a Startup Founder
Rui: People’s generosity never ceases to amaze me. Whether it’s advice, quick calls, or sharing experiences like today – there’s no harm in asking. The worst they can say is no.
Now, walk me through your typical pre-launch day. What were your hours like, and how did you divide your time between coding and user interactions?
Ahana: It was intense. There’s no way to sugarcoat it—I worked constantly. No weekends, just late nights and early mornings. It was gruelling. Now, I’m trying to improve my work-life balance, which was nonexistent in those early days.
With no external responsibilities, I felt compelled to work every waking hour. I took it to an extreme, reasoning, “If I’d gone into banking, I’d be working brutal hours anyway, so I should match that here.” It wasn’t the healthiest mindset, but it drove me forward.
My focus shifted through different stages. During the initial validation process, I devoted 100% of my time to user conversations. No coding—just reaching out, interviewing people, developing questions, and mapping assumptions in a spreadsheet. I approached it methodically, like a research project, gradually refining our understanding.
Once I had sufficient clarity on our assumptions, I switched entirely to product development. I immersed myself in coding, learning React Native from scratch to build our mobile app.
Near the end of YC, fundraising became the priority. Being new to raising capital, I dedicated about 90% of my time to investor discussions, preparing materials, and handling due diligence. The remaining 10% went to fixing bugs to maintain our early user community.
Post-funding, my focus shifted to hiring and building the right team. Then it moved to partnerships. Each stage demanded different priorities based on our most pressing challenges.
Currently, I’m laser-focused on product and retention—80% coding, and 20% user conversations. I’ve had to pause other initiatives, like our YouTube channel. Though it was effective for user acquisition and I enjoyed it, we can’t justify that time investment now. It’s not addressing our core challenges, so it must wait.
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Rapid Fire Entrepreneurial Questions
Rui: Having clear priorities is crucial. Many founders get distracted by secondary tasks like business plans before validating their core idea. The key is talking to users, building what they need, and improving through feedback before scaling.
Let’s shift gears with a few rapid-fire questions. Can you share one key lesson you learned about product?
Ahana: I’d say, be rigorous. Doing the hard work upfront—user interviews, assumption testing, all of it—pays off more than I expected.
Many companies spend a long time iterating toward product-market fit, and while we’re not fully there yet, the early groundwork made a huge difference.
Rui: What’s one key lesson you learned about marketing (other than not needing a marketing person from the start)?
Ahana: Trial and error. I couldn’t have predicted that LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube would work so well while TikTok and Instagram wouldn’t. But I gave everything a real shot, and whatever worked, I leaned into it.
Rui: One key lesson you’ve learned about managing people?
Ahana: Lead with empathy. Understanding why someone feels the way they do or wants certain things is critical to building strong relationships and fostering the right company culture.
We’re a fully remote team with people from different backgrounds, cultures, and countries. Having mutual respect and curiosity about each other’s work styles has created a great dynamic.
It’s been a journey, though—I’ve made hiring mistakes in the past, but now I’m really happy with the team we’ve built and the culture we’ve nurtured. It’s been worth the time and effort to get to this point.
Rui: Great segue—what’s one key lesson you’ve learned about creating and maintaining a strong company culture?
Ahana: Openness and transparency. It’s something we live by at Clear—it’s even in the name.
Being a young CEO has helped in this regard, as I haven’t developed the ego to think I’m above my team. My first hire was someone in their 60s, and I’ve always deeply respected my teammates and acknowledged their superior skills in many areas.
Transparency is central to our culture. I share important information with the team, including details about our runway, even though it’s not their direct responsibility. Our developers understand our strategic decisions—like why we sometimes accrue technical debt to iterate quickly at this stage, and why fixing non-critical issues can wait. This openness creates alignment and prevents misunderstandings.
We also prioritize open Slack communication over direct messages, ensuring everyone stays informed about conversations and decisions. This approach has proven highly effective, and it’s something I’m committed to maintaining.
Rui: Yes, transparency is key. At Altar, we invite clients to our all-hands meetings to show the team who we’re helping. It connects everyone to the purpose behind their work, boosting motivation.
Now, what’s one resource that’s been invaluable to your success? Could be a book, podcast, mentor—anything.
Ahana: I’ll share two key resources.
The first is the book Disciplined Entrepreneurship. It’s a 24-step guide to building a startup and serves as MIT’s entrepreneurship course textbook. I applied it from day one with both Quill and Clear. With Quill, I admittedly skipped the sections on user interviews—a mistake on my part! But the book excellently breaks down the overwhelming early stages of startup building and helps generate momentum.
The second is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. While I wish I read more, this book transformed my mindset. It reveals how success depends on multiple factors working together—having a great idea or team alone isn’t enough. This perspective helped me navigate the emotional rollercoaster of being a founder. The stories of success and failure taught me resilience and deepened my understanding of what it takes to persevere.
Thank You, Ahana…
… for sharing your remarkable journey as a young founder.
Ahana’s experiences—from building the initial product at university through securing venture capital and managing entrepreneurial pressures—offer invaluable lessons.
Her insights on persistence, community building, and problem-solving offer valuable lessons that will resonate deeply with aspiring founders embarking on their own entrepreneurial journeys.
Thank you for sharing your story with me and our audience. It’s been a pleasure.
