Blueland cofounders, Sarah Paiji Yoo, John Mascari (MBA 2012), and Gina Pak (MBA 2015)
(photo by Chris Taggart)

As new mom Sarah Paiji Yoo contemplated the switch from nursing her infant son to making him formula, she was horrified to discover that drinking water averages over 100 pieces of microplastics per liter. “All the plastic our society is consuming is ending up in our oceans and waterways, where it is breaking down into tiny pieces and appearing in the water we drink, the food we eat, and the formula I was making for my baby,” says Paiji Yoo. She wanted to cut back on her plastics consumption, but found that everything from shampoo to toothpaste to glass cleaner came packaged in single-use plastic.

Gina Pak (MBA 2015) during her presentation at the 2019 HBS New Venture Competition (photo by Susan Young)

Gina Pak (MBA 2015) during her presentation at the 2019 HBS New Venture Competition (photo by Susan Young)

That realization later led Paiji Yoo (who left HBS after her first year to pursue a mobile shopping startup she created) and her sectionmate John Mascari (MBA 2012) to cofound Blueland, which makes environmentally friendly cleaning products. They developed specially formulated, concentrated products that consumers reconstitute with water in Blueland’s reusable acrylic spray bottles—tinted pink for bathroom cleaning, yellow for multisurface, and blue for glass or mirrors. The company also recently introduced a foaming handwashing liquid in a glass pump bottle. The products are sold directly to consumers and will be available at a national retailer by summer of 2020.

In starting Blueland, Paiji Yoo and Mascari aimed to help reduce up to five billion cleaning-product bottles used per year. “We share a passion for the environment and felt this was an opportunity to create products that enable consumers to easily do the right thing,” says Paiji Yoo.

It’s a sentiment shared by founding member Gina Pak (MBA 2015) who, as Blueland’s head of Marketing and Experience, was the one to deliver the company’s 90-second pitch to judges and 400 audience members during HBS’s New Venture Competition (NVC) on April 23, 2019. The judges, many of them alumni, represented sectors ranging from venture capital to private equity to impact investing. Pak detailed the products’ key points and sold the judges on the concept, winning the $75,000 Alumni Track Grand Prize, as well as the $5,000 Crowd Favorite Prize.

“It’s all a blur,” says Pak of the whirlwind experience. Just the day before—Earth Day—she, Paiji Yoo, and Mascari had launched the New York-based company. Then, that night, Pak boarded a flight to Boston for the NVC, which helps to spur on entrepreneurial ventures founded by the School’s students and alumni. “What I remember most is the moment I showed our spray bottle, and then the cleaning tablet that you dissolve into water,” says Pak. “Several people gasped when they saw that, reinforcing the point about how novel this is and why that drives our vision.”

Each $2 tablet makes 20 ounces of nontoxic solution that has proven cleaning power. “One of the goals is to make sure that our products perform well in third-party independent testing, and we’re excited that they have matched or exceeded the efficacy of leading brands,” says Mascari. Testing was only one aspect of the rigorous process that went into developing Blueland products. The cofounders hired chemist Syed Naqvi to develop formulas in-house, and worked with Cradle to Cradle, the environmental assessment agency, to create platinum-rated, chemical-free bottles, which are wrapped in recyclable, compostable paper for shipping. Because the lightweight bottles contain no liquids and the tablets are nickel-sized, the environmental impact of delivering the products to consumers is lessened.

“We’re fortunate to be building this business at a time when there is so much focus on the plastics problem. It is helping to shift the consumer mindset from single-use to reuse,” says Pak. Kevin O’Leary, one of the “sharks” on Shark Tank, would agree. Paiji Yoo and Naqvi appeared on the popular television show on September 29, 2019, and their winning pitch secured $270,000 in funding from O’Leary for 3 percent equity and also royalty fees. “When I started on Shark Tank, it was all about the money, growing financial freedom, and helping entrepreneurs do the same,” tweeted the investor after the show. “Companies like Blueland have changed that. They’re changing the world with their innovation and making money at the same time!”

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