Clearing The Air: Clairy Inc. From Veneto To The US

Are you aware that indoor air pollution is an issue? Everyday you breathe around 3000 gallons of air and spend 90% of your time indoors. Surprisingly, indoor air is five times more polluted than outdoor! How can this problem be solved? Well, our interviewee might hold the answer. Pietro Paolo Ganis is a very skillful guy with a management degree from Bocconi University and a 4 year experience as an analyst at Generali Group. His startup journey is very articulate and includes a successful Kickstarter campaign, not so common for Italian entrepreneurs. His latest entrepreneurship effort is Clairy Inc., a startup founded with two other industrial design experts.

In few words, Clairy is a dual-part ceramic flowerpot. Inside the larger flowerpot, a fan directs the toxic air from inside the room to the roots of the plant to be detoxified. Indoor air quality, temperature and humidity sensors continually test the quality of the air. From there, the built-in Wi-Fi module sends real-time updates to the user’s smartphone. The product can be categorized into the smart-city revolution mainstream. Let’s hear more from Paolo himself:

Paolo, can you describe Clairy Inc. in 50 or less words?

Clairy is the most amazing natural air purifier. A flowerpot that combines the power of a real plant with a technology unit, helping people in reducing indoor pollution. It is also very smart so you can connect it to you smartphone a get real-time data about pollution in your space.

You have a degree from the most respected Italian university and had a promising career in finance, why did you decide to pursue your own dreams rather than someone else’s?

I’ve always loved entrepreneurship, since I was very young. I created several ventures and I think Clairy will be the right one to break the market! Previously, I was engaged in Shoppaz, an iOS platform tailored to shopper’s needs. My degree and the finance experience helped me a lot to hone my business acumen. I don’t see anything divergent between pursuing them and my entrepreneurship aspiration.

In 7 years from now: How did your startup change the world?

Changing the world is never easy but we are confident to contribute! We want people to be more aware about indoor pollution and consumers to be more keen on trying a more natural and green solution over the traditional ineffective ones. Even when we are at home, we breathe dirty air and have several substances affecting our health. We are sure we can help making our air clean.

Describe your typical working day from coming to the office to leaving it.

Right now, in the middle of my Kickstarter campaign I work at all hours. Many people send me messages, emails and more regarding the campaign so I must always be active and be able to reply promptly! Customers, vendors, investors: we think it’s important to make a great first impression and we do our best! A demanding but also rewarding effort.

In what ways do you measure your success and how do you make sure you don’t lose track?

Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in numbers: even with a startup is possible to play with numbers and draw your picture. My background in finance has really helped me to concentrate on the “real numbers”. At the moment, I just concentrate on how many people bought Clairy on Kickstarter! 😉 You can track our success here.

Bootstrapped or financed: What fuels your startup now and what will in the future?

I’ve mixed several sources to make Clairy a real project. Bootstrapped for the first 6 months, family and friends for a while and after that we finally received a first angel investment. In whole, selling an idea you believe in 100% is not as difficult as you might think. Participating in big events also made Clairy more visible to the investor community.

With ferocious competition and a booming trend to build new companies: How do you make sure you don’t get lost in the shuffle?

I don’t think there is a secret formula for this. In my experience, the best way is to move fast and execute at best. Always look at your competition in a positive way and find your own identity in what you do.

Why would a talent join your team? And what do you look for in team members?

Because we merge technology and nature in an incredible way and we are a design driven young company! The other way around, we like to see passion in our product and cross-functional skills. So, please, learn about our product before approaching us for an interview 🙂

What was your most memorable moment so far?

When we had our flight in 2 days to go back to Italy and the manager of Plug and Play Ventures, one of the best accelerators in Silicon Valley, told us that they loved the project and that they wanted us for the acceleration program for 3 months. We had to move our flight! 😉 I’d also like to add that the experience at Plug and Play was amazing and opened us lots of doors we believed were impossible to open.

What advice would you give fellow founders for their startup?

Believe in your ideas and realize them! Never give up! Don’t be afraid to try, even if doesn’t go well it will always be a great experience for you! When we showcased Clairy in Las Vegas (CES) we were fully unaware of how many opportunities we were close to.

________________

Sharing is caring so please share this post. Thank you!