Startup Savant Telling an Authentic Sustainability Story with Jamie McCroskery of Bluebird Climate
Jamie walks us through the importance of sustainability for businesses, the process of creating brand authority, building a dynamic team based on shared values, and balancing the needs of various stakeholders.
Jamie McCroskery is the founder and CEO of Bluebird Climate, a company striving to improve corporate sustainability efforts while quantifying a product’s environmental impact. Prior to launching Bluebird Climate, Jamie worked as a Product Manager at Glossier and Dropbox. Jamie credits his corporate experience with teaching him how to develop a product and assemble an all-star team.
Who is Jamie McCroskery, and why did he start his startup Bluebird Climate? [0:30]
Glass vs Plastic? The best way to be sustainable varies and often depends on a company’s specific needs as well as their own supply chain [3:08]
What is Bluebird Climate, and how do you help businesses improve sustainability? [4:02]
The two most important metrics for sustainability — carbon emissions and circularity (waste) [7:16]
Can already-established brands find ways to improve sustainability with their traditional pipeline and business model? [9:50]
Sway, which aims to create a plastic replacement out of seaweed is an example of a company using Bluebird Climate to tell sustainable stories. [10:00]
Focus on the easy wins — don’t reinvent the wheel [12:32]
Why is storytelling focused on sustainability a successful tool for driving conversion? [14:30]
Customers care about sustainability and want brands to focus on reducing carbon waste [17:59]
What is a public benefit corporation (B corp), and why structure your company this way? [18:40]
What is the Bluebird certification, and how do you cultivate brand authority? [22:55]
How do you balance marketing to various stakeholders like customers, retailers, vendors, and brands? [27:01]
Supply chains can be a convoluted mess [31:30]
How to recruit a team of experts using personal networks [33:50]
Entering a space with passion and motivation is essential for finding a great team [38:20]
Funding decisions should take into account your time and trajectory — investors may take a cut, but this allow you to more quickly determine if you’ll make it [39:28]
How a corporate background helped Jamie better lead his company [43:22]
Creating a client base, simple marketing, and growing your brand [46:00]
Day-to-day challenges are hard. Be sure to create a well-defined mission in order to hire the best team and tackle problems that will appear [51:05]
What does future growth look like for Bluebird Climate [55:40]?
Less can be more when starting out [1:00:05]
Jamie’s advice: Put your idea out there to get feedback, have a vision for your company’s values and goals, and determine what resources you will need to be successful [1:01:07]
If you are curious about improving your own business’s sustainability, reachout to Jamie at jamie@bluebirdclimate.com or check out Bluebird Climate’s website bluebirdclimate.com.
Jamie’s Recommended Books
- “Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth” by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares
- “The Mom Test” by Rob Fitzpatrick and Robfitz Ltd
- “The Founder’s Dilemma” by Noam Wasserman
- “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz
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