#23: How AI Can Advance Sustainability News - Andrea Gori from illuminem

Dennis: Hello, and welcome to the Impactful Ninja Show. I'm your host, Dennis Kambrat. And today, we're joined by Andrea Gori from illuminem. Andrea, welcome.

On: Thank you, Dennis. And thank you to everyone that listen to our podcast. It's, my pleasure to be with you.

Dennis: My pleasure having you as well. Now let's get into it. Give us a brief overview. What is illuminem?

Andrea: illuminem is purely a mission startup. We want to empower the sustainable transition, this big change in the world with 2 ingredients, the most insightful information and the most insightful data.

Dennis: So, basically, if I if I were to picture it as the mission driven start with the data and the insights and the information, What would I need to picture them to make it, like, a little more concrete reading?

Andrea: Yes. Of course. You can picture it very concretely. First of all, going on illuminem.com, and you already see there on one side almost unlimited news on sustainabilities that are brought to you by a mix of AI and the editorial curated content. So you can imagine everything happening in sustainability, the life rent, life categorized, life summarized in 60 seconds for you. And it is not enough. In parallel to that, we are very proud to have the largest expert network of sustainability top leaders. So this means over 1,500 people from head of states to top scientists, from CEOs to activists that on a daily basis, they share with us their insights on how we advancing in our sustainable transition.

Andrea: So this is a very concrete in front of you. And maybe Dennis later will speak more about building data that is more b to b and less, of course, b to c.

Dennis: Awesome. Now thanks for the overview. I think now we we can picture it quite clearly. Let's take a step back now. Before you start the illuminem, what's your background? What did you do beforehand?

Andrea: Yeah. I hope I will not make this story longer, but I like to consider myself a climate quitter. So I have, literally, say, a watershed point in my life. illuminem, changed completely my passion, my my city, my life, I can say. And so let's start very simple. I was, first of all, I was a very active student on the front line of many, let's say, environmental campaigns. After that, I had the opportunity to actually, like, work in finance. It was a subject I studied.

Andrea: I actually started my career in JPMorgan. So if you want the opposite of what is today the activist word. So from a big bank trading desk in London. And then afterwards, I did, long journey for almost 8 years in the Boston Consulting Group. He's, as you know, he's a very famous consulting company. At the time, I remember very clearly because, all of my mentors, colleagues were telling me, Andrea, you did the JPMorgan, you did finance. You should be like a great leader in our private equity practice. And I said at the time, no. No, guys. I'm here because we can do sustainability consulting.

Andrea: And at the time, trust me, was less than 7,000,000 in revenues for a huge corporation, so something completely relevant for the picture of the company. But we bet on it. And slowly, we created a leading practice area, so a leading, business area for the Boston Consulting Group. He had the honor to be green champion for entire continent, then the global green champion of, of the group. So representing the group, taking care of many environmental initiative, projects around the world, helping corporations in their decarbonization transition. And after that, with colleagues actually from, from that experience, we took the courage of building Illumina. So I hope I give you a glimpse of it, Denis.

Dennis: Sweet. So it sounds like you already had some some kind of sustainability baked in from from the very start when you said your studies are sustainable and about the environment. Later on, you transitioned it sounds like a brief period of finance, doing something different. But then with the consulting at BCG, you went back and, well, dedicated much more time into sustainability again. And then you mentioned afterwards with a few colleagues, that you started illuminem. What was the concrete challenge that you faced? What was the starting point for you that you said, like, well, it's great leading the sustainability practice in one way or the other, but you want to do something else. You want to do something on your own. You want to do maybe a little bit more even.

Andrea: It's exactly everything you mentioned. I hope I don't disappoint you to tell you that it's not an heroic moment. It's not like, one night where you literally change everything. It's something that grows with you, grows within you. And in that feeling, of course, like, having been at the front line of, of a new, let's say, part of the PCG business, so helping companies in sustainability. I was really realizing how this entire new world, what I believe would be like the new business normal, like, was literally lacking so many of the foundations, so many of the services, so many of the opportunities that you don't find in any other industry. And we actually started from the core. We said, guys, the problem is not to make another scientific innovation, but to enable the entire sustainable transition to literally reach us faster, to literally make it happen for real.

Andrea: So that was probably the big, the big observation. And from that big observation, very methodically, we started to understand where was the market gap, where we could make a difference. Because when you start, you literally have no resources and nothing nothing else at all goodwill. So that's literally the best realization. And hopefully, like, looking at us today already with a company with 300,000 users, with so many friends like you, Dennis. Already, I feel one step closer to that goal that we still have very high there guiding our way.

Dennis: Nice. That sounds that sounds quite similar to my journey, actually. Because after university, I started in consulting as well. I was looking specifically for sustainability consulting, and all the big three consulting companies didn't really offer anything like this. So I decided, like, a smaller boutique firm which focused on sustainability consulting. But then, also, in my mind, it grew so much more. It's like, okay. I wanna I want to do something different.

Dennis: In our case, we we try to enable people to make a positive impact in their lives across sustainability, but in also ethics and many, many different aspects. But it feels like quite a similar journey that slowly grew to, well, to keep it going into the, well, the much bigger operation we're now. But you also mentioned already, like, a big point of about 300,000 users. Can you remember still, like, going one step back? What was the very first concrete step? How did you get Illumina started? I imagine it takes also for you, it took quite a bit of time to hit the ground running and then to get to the first 300,000.

Andrea: Yes. First of all, let me say, Dennis, that we're selling the same shoes, and this polish should be the word of encouragement to any of your listeners, any of our friends there. Guys, we can make it happen. If you start believing in yourself, like, it's possible. And now if I go back on our early days, yeah, there is no garage, you know, there is a classic example, but, there is still, like, all that sweat, that effort, that, fatigue, of trying hard without any real chance, at least on the paper. And now let me tell you, for me, the first part of the journey was to get around me people that were better than me. And I say, guys, I actually can have the good intuition, but I need you, your tech skills to make a platform that is amazing with AI, with the good user experience. I need you because you're a great product person that can guide me to make the user experience amazing.

Andrea: I need you as well to help me with the legal staff. I need you as well to help me with the networking. So the 1st concrete step is building a team, a team of people better than me. I always say to my team, the day where I'm better than you in this room, I'm actually in the wrong room. So I need to like, I love to keep summoning myself to people that always inspire me every day for their rigor, for their willingness to make them second as much as for their capabilities. And the second step, right after having built this team, was to literally work on a meme by the product. I remember we were working very late at night because, when you have another job, like, happens only for many of you, you actually squeeze your weekends, you squeeze your, like, your nights to try to build something. For us, it was, an experiment.

Andrea: Let me see. The experiment, was even giving mixed results. So right? When you start and one thinks, oh my god, build a platform in 2 months, now I got 1,000,000 users. In reality, you have a number that is always, I actually don't know if it's good enough, not good enough. I would love it more. I would love it, like, to be bigger. But at that point, I just felt that I was happy. I was feeling, for once, doing something that was meaningful to me, something that it was having an impact on others.

Andrea: And so at the point, we took the courage and I said, guys, maybe it's the most things we're gonna do in our life, but, we will always regret if we don't make it happen now. And, of course, I speak to you 1 year and a half after that moment, and I still have the same energy and the same, feelings. Yeah.

Dennis: And isn't it the most beautiful thing also when you get positive feedback from from your readers or from from your viewers, listeners? It's like, hey. Thanks so much for that piece of content or for this this other piece of content. You really, like, helped me make a positive impact. And yeah. Oh, at least that's, it's the most exciting part for me always.

Andrea: Literally, it's the x it's that secret sauce that makes you, like, makes every day a good day. Even when, it's we're too tired or unhappy of a result. Like, we should never forget that on the other side of the screen, there are real people that, thanks to us, maybe have taken a better choice. Maybe have, gained a skill or maybe even better. They're now, like, becoming other change makers, creating a ripple effect for the better.

Dennis: Now you mentioned 2 things as well. 1, your journey was one and a half years so far. And the second thing is, just about 300,000 users or visitors. Walk us along the along the journey from finding the team to growing where you are today. What were the key milestones that passed along the way?

Andrea: Yeah. I give you a story again that too simplified because it's done, exposed. But, if you consider 3 steps that happened in my journey, it's number 1, you build a team and you build the main viable product, which is the classic dynamic story. You got it. The second one is that you try to literally understand if the problem you're solving is a real problem for your own audience. And here, let me tell you, I got it completely wrong at the beginning. Because as any person that is believing in what what he's doing, like, you always think, absolutely, that's the way I got it. Let's keep going.

Andrea: In reality, like, you never stop learning. You never stop learning from the market. You never stop learning from your friends, from your customers. And in this sense, like, I actually wanna even, like, recommend many books hopefully in this session. But it was a book called MAM Test. MAM Test was amazing to literally change, like, the way we were looking at what we're building. So in this second step was put into discussion what we're doing and creating, let's say, not a new viral product, but the real platform. So I can call it build a community feeling.

Andrea: The community feeling, is, probably today the only the big achievement that we have. And and I'll move on the 3rd phase. The 3rd phase is you build upon this community, and you start, like, leveraging its success to deliver what is the second product. In our case, we call the data product, our let's say, our current goal. We now, like, move from, like, having scaled the community to having data product that is now in the testing phase in, is already in hands off as customers. And maybe we'll discuss a bit later, but this is actually what keeps me busy now, keeps me, like, awake at night. And let me mention the last thing. In parallel to this, because these are very simplified story, you always have, like, your usual 2 perennial question.

Andrea: 1 is the funding. So you always need to be constantly in touch with investors that can choose to back you or not, can choose to believe in your vision or not. So you always need to keep that line of the phone always open. And the second one is the one about making sure that you build a team next to you. Right? You want people that believe in the mission as much as you. You want people that are literally there for you. So maybe a summary of the first things. Meanwhile, product, community, data product, and in parallel, you have fundraising and team building.

Dennis: Yeah. So many nice reflections there. One is, like, with the team. It sounds like as if you're speaking about our team as well, which is super awesome. It's like when you say believing in the mission, for example, whenever we interview people, the very first question is always, like, what are you most excited about? And there's, like, so many technical things or so many other benefits that they could speak about, but we only go ahead with those who identify with the mission. It's like, well, it's your mission of making a positive impact. That's why I wanna join.

Dennis: And the second thing is, like, having people smarter than yourself in the room. It's amazing working with true experts who you're just, well, you're just really working together with them. You see, oh, they make an impact. They know what they're speaking about. With that being said, there's already a few things that you mentioned. One, with the data with the product. Let's keep that for for the future outlook. But then also with the community, that sounds super interesting.

Dennis: In which way were you able to build up a community so far? And how could I picture the community from the outside or maybe also from the inside?

Andrea: Absolutely from the inside. That's the best the best picture because I think the community is a mix of being very honest and integral in what to do and a mix, of course, of creating real values for them.

Andrea: On one side, you need to create the natural empathy. You need to show that you're doing something that like that is honest. If you do sustainability, I always say perfection is not only in what you do, but in how you do it. So in this case, let me tell you 2 bold choices that I'm proud. We took the courage of taking against every possible advice we've received. We are now today, like, probably the only media platform that by design has no paywall, so there is not a single content to be paid, and second, there's no advertisements. So we literally created a business model. I always say it's the new way of medias where, like, the user is a pure, let's say, benefit, sir, what we're doing, and he can enjoy on a very generous way.

Andrea: And then, of course, you can engage on cross sellings, you can engage on, like, selective companies, but not directly being charged to pay for what you're offering them. The second thing that I say in of the community is, study very well what is needed in the sustainability space in in your market. And here, let me tell you how this community, like, started. So you can see, like, a festival in to, like, picture the market. In the market, we selected a niche that was a bit high end in this market. So let me be concrete. Instead of talking about, bamboo toothbrush and nothing against that, we need to have, like, also those reviews and those discussions. We'd selected, like, to give space to dedicate our front page, to literally quality content that is by design a bit more long to read, but design a bit more technical, but was positioning immediately ourselves in an angle of credibility.

Andrea: So I would say today that a success of Illumina, the success of this community has been first of all being credible. 2nd step was to associate yourself to the real actors of this ecosystem. Like, me and you alone will be no one. But if next to us, we have the leaders of Greenpeace, the leaders of WWF, the leaders of the United Nations, the leaders of the International Energy Agency, like head of states, and people with different opinion, but all of them with a common denominator. That the opinion is credible, the opinion is meaningful. At that point, like, you win, like, that game of being credible. So if I recap, like, position yourself in a niche of the market that is the credibility niche, the expert niche. 2nd, get these people associate themselves to you.

Andrea: And 3rd, let the community, like, interact almost on his own. Now we have a WhatsApp group that are managed by our members. We have, like, so many authors that write us on us every single week. And this is the beauty of seeing the community growing and, of course, it's reflected in the numbers that I see every day on our web sites. And every day make me so proud that something is happening. There is a word outside there that, thanks to us, get the right quality, sustainability information for free.

Dennis: Now before we look into to the future, give us a brief brief overview. What have been your your biggest challenges along the way as well?

Andrea: I have the list is very long, actually. I should I should I should speak for now for now on that. But, no. Let's make it let's make it short. So challenges number 1 is to operate with a very low budget. Because when you actually wanna interact with top caliber professionals, it's very difficult to, like, create something when you have a very limited budget. Second thing is to attract people, like, to work with you at the beginning. Here, let me tell you something again, very bold that we did.

Andrea: We choose not to be another startup in London, New York, or Shanghai. We said, guys, like, we can live by example. And in this case, we moved all of us to live in Venice. Venice is a very special city. It's a city that is the frontier of climate change. We are thriving in front of our doors at the office. But, you know, when you go in a city where there is no big ecosystem around you, literally to bring the talent with you. And that that is something that makes me again very proud today.

Andrea: Today we have around 20 friends here with us, like people were people that were originally from New York, Barcelona, from Paris or London, from Seoul or Gimme another city or from Zambia. And these people have chosen to be with us. Right? So if I recap the question, which one of the biggest challenges? Number 1, operate in a low budget environment. And second, attract the right people in an environment that makes everything meaningful.

Dennis: Sweet. It feels feels quite similarly again. Now let's take the opportunity and have a look into the future as well. You already mentioned something around the data product. Give us a brief outlook. What would be the future for illuminem?

Andrea: Here, we have a bold ambition. So remember the mission, you need to empower the sustainable transition with the most insightful information and data. Concretely, what are we doing with data? With data, we are building a product that, on one side, enable you to monitor live the environmental performance of any company, public and private. To understand which type of transparency we're bringing to the market. It's a revolution by itself. And, again, what is intuition? The intuition is if we know a bit better, we can choose a bit better. But more concretely, any product have different monetization schemes. The first way we wanna monetize our data is exactly to help our best friends, our community.

Andrea: Our community is made of thousands of companies, thousands of people in sustainability. And these people, what they're doing, they're doing solutions, amazing solution. This solution could be a software or like a new machine, could be like a type of service or a new renewable energy. All these solutions, let's call them sustainability solution providers, now have at our time to reach the scale. So what we're doing now is that we're using our data to enable all these sustainability solutions to scale. And the way we're doing it is that offering them the right insights, the right leads, the right intent to make them understand where the space for them. And, of course, again, you can understand the power of this impact. Because if you help your friend that has an amazing, I don't know, new type of renewable energy to deploy, to be deployed at scale, In that case, you have achieved so much more. That's what we alone would have done just with a single platform.

Dennis: Nice. It sounds like you're you're targeting probably also a few different groups of of all the offerings that you have. 1, it's the the, well, AI aggregated sustainability news, then it's community, and then it's the data. Now for everyone listening, who would be the right candidate or the right person for each of those buckets, and how could we best well join your journey?

Andrea: Actually, me, I actually simplify a lot this picture because I feel that first of all, everyone should feel part of our community if they want. This community is meant to be like a people of goodwill that are just happy to read, to stay informed, to get knowledge on sustainability. Specifically, within this community, we wanna help with the data solution, the sustainability solution providers. So all the people that have a sustainability solution, and I say of every kind, from a carbon solution to a renewable energy solution to a transport solution to literally have the solution scaling. So let's make it simple. So everyone, like, a free quality information and knowledge. And specifically, for this, like, a group of makers, we have a sales tool that help you make your solution scale.

Dennis: So it's it sounds like on the one hand, Cynto, if I want to consume the information, if I want to look for a solution, that would be perfect for me to go to the community. But on the other hand side, also, like, if I if I want to contribute with with more information with a solution, then I could also join the community and just, well, help everyone make an even bigger bigger impact with the solution.

Andrea: Exactly, Dennis.

Dennis: Nice. We put the the information about illuminem into the show notes as well and display them on the screen. And with this, let's have a little transition now into your personal learnings as well. If you reflect on your journey since, normally, I would say since starting with illuminem, but probably also since starting the sustainability practice with the Boston Consulting Group. How would you say has that changed your personal life, getting to know much, much more about sustainability and the importance of it?

Andrea: Yeah. I can share some tips about my mistakes, my lesson learned. As an entrepreneur, maybe a couple of tips that to me were important lesson. I can say number 1, aim to be collocated with your team. Remote is a beautiful solution when you have something already scaling, something already working, but we need to build innovate. There is no other way to be collocated. And if some team members, and it's perfectly fair, doesn't want to be, like, working in the same room, in the same space with you, simply not the right team member for that phase. Maybe you should simply welcome that person to say, amazing.

Andrea: We remain friends. You will be of great help when we can effectively work remotely. So advice number 1. Advice number 2 is also about looking for people that have the right resilience because truth is, it's much harder, much more difficult than we think. And I always remember this myself and I remember I always remember these to, like, to my team member and say, guys, we will not win because we are simply the best one. We will win because it's difficult to beat a team that doesn't give up. If instead go, like, more personal learnings, maybe here the biggest learning is purely about communicating. I see that all of us that we are so much into our sustainability readings, topics, and good practices.

Andrea: We often do the error of, judging, of closing up and say, look at these guys, they pollute a lot with their car. Look at these other guys, they actually don't care about what they're hitting. Look at these other guys, they they're traveling so much and so irresponsibly. In reality, we can be the only, like, the only change makers when we give the example. So we speak like we walk the talk, but at the same time, when we make the others understand. So my, like, biggest advice as a human being is never stop communicating why it matters. And this means to your mom, means to your best friend, means to that friend that you would like to see only once a month. And you'll be surprised how, like, you're powerful when you will speak openly and make people understand that something is a true purpose.

Andrea: So I hope I gave you that, those three lessons, Dennis. And, happy if I could elaborate more.

Dennis: Nice. Yeah. It sounds also like the connection between the why and speaking to your mom sounds like a perfect lesson from the book, The Mom Test as well. No?

Andrea: Actually, if you want me to elaborate on that, let me even share more because I feel that the generation of our mothers, right, and could be our grandparent grandparents for others or, like, anyone that is not any more young person, right, is a true cultural shock when it comes to our sustainability standards. I always make this concrete example and say, look, my parents, they were born with a simple playbook. What you need to do to get good person, something someone respected in society was to find a good job, get married, typically, like buy a house, make up a very beautiful family. Right? Now we arrive and say, mom, like, oh my god. You got married so early, like, you don't have the respect for your own freedom. Mom, oh my god. You bought a house in the periphery. You know, to go to the city center to work, now you need to commute every day, like, for an hour by car.

Andrea: Terrible. And that house, is not so cohabitated. I think it's very polluting. And then you even say to my mom, you actually, like, don't take care of a more vegan friendly limitation. And a lot of things, and she simply like she simply doesn't understand, but not because she's not intelligent enough. Simply because she was for years years told that what she was doing was exactly right. And so it takes time to let her understand that, yes, ma'am. You can actually like, remote works sometimes.

Andrea: You can actually live in a more co living space. You can actually choose to be more independent in certain things. And there is no judgment in doing 1 or the other, but to just simply show that there is a new world opening up. And often behind this new world, there are real values. This is actually a game changer.

Dennis: Yep. And isn't it also beautiful to see when like, with all the information and with all all the impact that you you're able to create, that you're also able to help those closest around you, your your family? At least for me, it's always, like, super amazing to see. It's like, oh, how can I help my mom or my dad to to live a little more sustainably? And then they're super proud. It's like, hey. Look what I changed. And now I do these things instead of what I used to do. It'd be fun. Yeah. That makes me the proudest of all.

Andrea: I'm sure I'm sure your parents are very proud of this. So I know.

Dennis: Now let's already go to the to the final question. If you had to share one tip with our audience, how we could become more impactful, what would your number one tip be for us?

Andrea: I love this question. To me, it'll be like the biggest thing is to never stop learning. That's the best way to be impactful. If you always keep that curiosity, that curiosity can shake, like, your beliefs, that curiosity that makes you every day, like, go be deeper in something, then I feel that the right action is purely simple consequence. Too often, when we don't act, it's because we don't understand the urgency of that action, because we don't understand the real impact of that action. So my biggest advice is never stop learning because we will need all your intelligence. We'll need all of this intelligence to make this place a better place, and I'm convinced that after the right learnings, this world will be green or will not be.

Dennis: Beautiful. Well, Andrea, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks so much for all the great work that you're doing with illuminem as well.

Andrea: Thanks to you, Dennis. Thanks to all of your listeners. And, of course, also feel free to get in touch with me. Us visiting us in Venice, we have, we're always happy to greet friends visiting us. And, of course, keep it green to me. Yeah.

Dennis: Would be lovely. Yeah. And thanks to everyone else so much for joining us, and stay impactful