'RecycleSmart is Uber for Waste Management,' says Marco, CTO and Founder

HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background

I am a software engineer with a strong passion for mobile. I’ve been developing apps since the first iOS SDK and never looked back.

I have also played other roles, such as Product Manager and Product Owner for Startups and Product Companies. I consider myself a product-oriented CTO.

What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?

Our Startup is called RecycleSmart and we are ‘Uber for Waste.‘ You book a pickup, prepare your (hard to recycle) waste, and we collect it and dispose/recycle it for you.

What is the origin story?

We had a similar startup, also 8 years ago. We were inspecting peoples’ bins to determine contamination rates.

It was very expensive and we weren’t solving any problems. Sending people feedback after the inspections wasn’t enough in the council’s eyes. After two years we had to shut down. My Co-founder and I were stuck with the problems of shutting down.

Knowing that there was much more to do in the space, and if it wasn't going to be us, someone else would have done it.

So after 5 years of playing in the education space for the waste industry, we got our chance with the Anlter program.. a famous incubator in Sydney. This time we decided to collect and sort people’s waste from their houses. And here we are.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?

My team is composed of people who are really passionate about recycling.

It’s our opportunity to do something good, and it’s really rare. I don’t want to work for banks anymore.

We are unique because we are a plug-and-play business. In the government space, the hardest thing is to do is to get contracts. We managed to do it because we don’t cost much and we don’t lock councils in endless contracts.

We operate differently from big collectors in the industry. We don’t recycle anything ourselves - we are just the last mile logistic.

We do collection and sorting for single households. Then we leverage the existing local infrastructure for recycling the items we collect.

If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?

Probably building something else.

At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?

Two simple metrics: how many new councils we acquire over 3 months and how many bags we collect per council per user per month. Sounds hard but it’s quite simple.

We are growing, so if the numbers keep on going up we are doing a good job.

What’s most exciting about your traction to date?

The fact that we have an almost 60% retention rate!

What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why?

Flutter - I am excited because it’s super easy to produce awesome results! I am very scared by Flutter because of the famous Google graveyard.

What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?

I got invited.

However, I have used the platform many times in the past. It’s very well known in the community and it’s a privilege to get some recognition for hard work.

What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?

Be strong and patient.

What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?

Mental Health is the most important thing for a startup founder. Coping with the ups and downs may not be something you are ever ready for.