Ahana Banerjee, CEO of Clear: Skin Social on "One the Come UP" Podcast

For the ninth episode of “One the Come UP,” I was honored to have Ms Banerjee as my guest. The CEO and Founder of Clear: Social Skincare –  a free skin care routine tracking app – Ms Banerjee has always had one goal in mind: to bring a positive value to the world. A never ending pursuit, it started from the culture shock she experienced moving to India from the UK. There, she saw the dual realities of life: luxury and poverty. Questioning why she had the privilege of being born into the former group, she took it as her responsibility to give back for all she’s been given. This initially sparked an interest in physics for her – the underpinning of the science that drives innovation – which brought her to the Imperial College London. In her first year, though, she realized that physics wouldn’t allow her to accomplish her goal. So, to see other avenues of extending her mission, she took up an internship at Morgan Stanley and helped a start-up grow from the initial stages. Realizing from these experiences that entrepreneurship and coding could enable her to bring to life her mission – bring a positive value to the world – she started Quill, an AI note transcriber and her first submission to Y Combinator. They ended up not liking the idea, but loving her, and so gave her 4 days to come up with another idea. Her answer: Clear. After 3 months in San Francisco, a successful funding round, and expansion as a company – the rest is history. Clear now has tens of thousands of users across the globe, and has helped countless people with their skin. The future of skin care treatment will never be the same, and Clear will continue to clear up the world.