Clear

Alumni Q&A

How did your company get started? (i.e., How did the founders meet? How did you come up with the idea? How did you decide to be a founder?)

The founder, who studied physics at Imperial College London before moving into tech, finance, and startups, dealt with cystic acne for over a decade and struggled to tell whether the diets, medications, and products she tried were working. After turning to online skincare communities, she built Clear to let users track their routines and progress, connect with others, and receive data-driven product recommendations.

What's the history of your company from getting started until the present day? What were the big inflection points?

Founded by Ahana Banerjee, an Imperial College London and Y Combinator alumna and Forbes 30 Under 30 awardee, Clear is a mobile app for buying, tracking, and sharing skincare routines, including selfie analysis data shared with cosmetic brands. It grew to over 10,000 users with no paid acquisition or marketing hires, was featured among the US App Store's Best New Apps in 2023, and recorded more than 500,000 routine check-ins and 32,000 posts. It also won the L'Oreal Beauty Tech for Good Challenge and the Beiersdorf Beauty Tech Innovation Summit.

What is the core problem you are solving? Why is this a big problem? What made you decide to work on it?

The founders identify communication gaps across the skincare industry: consumers are unsure which products to use or whether they work, brands lack insight into consumer behavior, and dermatologists find it hard to communicate with patients. Clear addresses this through routine tracking and a social community that lets users measure progress and get product recommendations, gives brands real-time consumer insights, and lets users share routine and progress data with medical professionals in what they describe as a $200B industry.

What is your long-term vision? If you truly succeed, what will be different about the world?

The founders aim to build Clear into a broad skincare ecosystem spanning self-tracking and recommendations, teledermatology, an e-commerce marketplace, a rewards program, skincare content, and their own skincare products, all supported by data-driven industry insights.