Interview: Natalia Dernicka & Heilo

The entrepreneurial journey of Natalia Dernicka, co-founder & CEO at the startup ⁠Heilo ⁠from Poland.

Heilo is developing an anti-smog cover baby strollers with air purification function.

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Pitching Heilo

Did you know that the average two-year-old child in southeastern Europe inhales air as polluted as smoking 200 cigarettes a month? According to the World Health Organization, 93 percent of children worldwide breathe polluted air, leading to severe health consequences later in life.

This is why we created Heilo, an innovative air purifier specifically designed for baby prams and strollers. Heilo is compatible with most strollers on the market. Simply attach it, turn it on, and your baby is shielded from air pollutants, bacteria, allergens, and toxic gases like car exhaust.

Heilo is transforming how parents protect their babies while on the go. Whether it’s during a smoggy winter day, on a crowded bus, in a doctor’s waiting room, or amidst city traffic, Heilo ensures your child breathes clean air. Our mission is to safeguard children from the harmful effects of air pollution and climate change. Follow us on social media to learn more about our products and join our efforts to protect children’s health.

Heilo’s Origins

It was a cold winter evening in Wroclaw, Poland. My co-founder, Gosia, and I were having tea with a friend who had just welcomed a newborn baby. We were discussing the severe smog problem in South Poland and Warsaw, particularly during winter. Our friend expressed her frustration about not being able to take her baby for a walk for days due to the poor air quality. We were struck by the fact that while adults can wear anti-smog masks, there was no solution for protecting infants, who are especially vulnerable in their early months.

Surprised by this gap in the market, we decided to investigate further and found no existing solutions for this issue. Both Gosia and I had significant business experience, having run and managed companies and been involved in startups. We felt ready to take on a new challenge and create something impactful.

We decided to start a company to develop a product that would help parents and children worldwide combat air pollution. This was the beginning of Heilo. We began with extensive research on the problem and potential solutions, and then gradually designed a multifunctional and protective air purifier for baby prams and strollers.

Three years later, we have our MVP ready. The first samples have been sold, and initial feedback from users has been positive. We are now poised to accelerate our production, but we need additional funding to kick-start full-scale production and market launch.

The Backstory of the Name “Heilo”

With so many startups and companies around the world today, finding an available and unique name is challenging. Our initial favorite was “Airbee” because we loved the wordplay, merging “air” and “baby.” It subtly conveyed the essence of our product. However, during our research, we discovered that Airbee was already taken by a company in a similar industry related to filters.

As we searched further, we came across the term “halo” in Formula One, which is a protective device that guards the driver’s life during accidents. Additionally, a halo (or aureole) symbolizes protection, much like a guardian angel. This resonated with our mission of providing an invisible shield for babies, protecting them from harmful particles.

Thus, we decided on the name “Heilo.” Though spelled differently, it encapsulates the idea of a protective cover for your baby. It also lends itself to playful wordplay: “Hey, use it, Heilo baby!” Our product is especially designed for newborns, offering them a protective “halo” as they come into the world.

What Makes Heilo Special?

Heilo combines innovative features that, while existing separately, have never been integrated into a single product. Our goal was to create a multifunctional device that addresses a wide range of issues faced by parents, offering comprehensive protection for babies.

First, Heilo consists of two main components. The first is a fabric cover designed to fit most strollers and prams on the market. This means you don’t need to buy a new stroller; simply attach Heilo to your existing one. The cover is flexible and adjustable, ensuring compatibility with various stroller models and making it accessible to everyone.

We also prioritized ease of use. The cover is designed for quick access, allowing parents to react swiftly if their baby is crying. It’s user-friendly for people with disabilities, featuring elements that are comfortable and easy to handle.

The second component is the air-purifying device. This part filters the air, preventing harmful particles from entering the stroller. We ensured the design is safe for babies, with a shape that avoids any risk of injury. Additionally, Heilo provides real-time data on air quality and filter usage, so parents can monitor conditions inside the stroller and make adjustments if necessary.

Heilo’s sensors verify its effectiveness, proving that it works while also looking good. It’s durable and designed for longevity, allowing you to resell it or pass it on when your child outgrows it. If parts wear out, you can replace individual components, like the fabric cover or reusable filters, instead of buying a whole new product.

In summary, Heilo is a smart, durable, and multifunctional device that offers a comprehensive solution for protecting your baby from air pollution.

Testing and Impact

Often, the problem in Europe arises during autumn, winter, and spring, particularly in areas near mountains where the air stagnates.

This is why Krakow, in southern Poland, frequently has air quality issues. Similarly, areas around lakes in Italy face the same problem. This issue is prevalent in many polluted countries where awareness of air pollution is low, and industrial emissions are high. This includes much of Asia. In winter, Krakow and Warsaw often rank among the most polluted cities globally, with Poland frequently in the top 10.

The most polluted areas are metropolises. Cities like Los Angeles, New York, and Beijing even have specific terms for their smog, such as “Los Angeles smog.” Asia, southern and southeastern Europe, South America, and parts of the USA and Western Europe all suffer from significant air pollution, depending on the weather.

We are happy to be adapting Heilo for countries and regions with higher temperatures. Currently, our first batch of the product is limited to temperatures around 23 degrees Celsius, ensuring the baby remains comfortable. We recognize that air pollution is also a problem in hotter areas, and our second iteration will address this by making the product suitable for higher temperatures.

Heilo’s Team

We’ve assembled a team with diverse expertise while maintaining a common goal. This blend of skills and perspectives is exactly how we envisioned our team.

I personally have experience in growing startups, specifically in building sales organizations at various levels: field sales, inside sales, customer service, and supply chain management. Being part of a previous startup founding team gave me a comprehensive overview of running a company, as founders are responsible for virtually everything. This broad knowledge is crucial for building a successful company.

My co-founder, Małgorzata Walichiewicz (Gosia), is an expert in marketing. She has extensive experience in digital marketing and has helped many startups in the Polish scene grow. Her involvement in various activities necessary for startup growth has given her a well-rounded understanding of what it takes to build a successful startup.

Given the technical nature of our product, we needed someone with engineering expertise. Damian Degon, our lead engineer, developed our air purifying devices and all the electronics inside. He is the technical brain of our operation, addressing all technology-related questions. We also had project managers involved at different stages of development, coordinating and building the device.

Our designer, Daria Vipur, is more than a graphic designer. She designed the cover for Heilo, adjusted all the fabrics, and shaped its aesthetic. The look of Heilo, including the logo and branding, is thanks to Daria, our aesthetics manager.

In the early stages of a startup, it’s challenging to have a large team divided into specialized areas. We had to do everything ourselves, with the help of project managers. As the startup grows and generates revenue, we can build solid core teams focused on specific topics.

Support and Community

We built a community of parents as our main consultants. This group, comprising mostly moms but also many dads, provided crucial feedback and expertise. They were our primary consultants, helping us challenge and test our product. Their feedback on functionalities guided our development process.

Once the product reached a certain stage, we continued testing and refining it based on their feedback. This collaborative approach was vital to building a multifunctional product. We are grateful to our friends and all the parents involved, as their contributions made Heilo possible.

Our mentors are invaluable—they keep us sane. The process of building a startup can be challenging and stressful, often requiring long hours. It’s essential to manage this workload to avoid constantly working in the afternoons and weekends. Initially, it might seem necessary, but eventually, you realize it’s unhealthy for everyone, including those close to you. The stress and challenges inevitably impact our immediate environment, and our mentors are our first consultants in navigating this.

I want to thank my boyfriend, who calms me down and provides a counter-perspective on various topics. Having people around who can give honest feedback is crucial. This kind of support is incredibly important.

I value the honest feedback we receive: “Hey, do you think this makes sense? Maybe it would be worth changing or amending it?” Both types of feedback, supportive and critical, are super crucial to our development.

Challenges for women in business

It definitely requires a bit of resilience. But I would also say it’s important to stand your ground because you will have to talk with a lot of people in different phases of the company development with the different providers, with the different partners, and everyone will tell you something or suggest something. And it’s  important that you know where you’re going. You keep up with those plans, but you also keep your values. I would say this is very important because at some point you may be constantly told that it’s important, that just the money is important or that you should do it this and this way, or do not even think about going this way.

It doesn’t make sense. So it’s good to listen to it all, but at the end of the day, to remember what you, where you want to go, and what was your idea behind it? What are your values and to stay strong with this? Because then, of course, be open to learning from others and taking those lessons.

But among others, it’s quite a bumpy road. It will be challenging at times, so it’s important to assume right away that it will be this way and not to be surprised by this. And if you are ready for this,  great things can happen, especially when you have the idea of the business driven by mission. At the end of the day, with all those struggles and risks that you have to take, this is what keeps you going. Like you remember why you want to do it. And it’s worth it in the end.

The majority of startups or companies are led by men. Those led by women who are rather in the minority. When we were pitching our idea to investors, the majority of investors were also men and men deciding about the product. In our case, the solution is for babies and for both parents, but we got far better feedback from mothers than from fathers. And when we are pitching our idea to men, we sometimes have a feeling they do not identify themselves with a problem or they feel it’s not their problem. You may only assume, but sometimes we have a feeling that women are not treated equally seriously. 

I guess this is some kind of long-term stereotype. It’s always written somewhere that a tall man in glasses and with a low voice is more truthful than anyone else. By those stereotypes, it’s probably sometimes hard to break through. However, we do see some changes.

We were received very well in different environments. We see changes in Europe already where this wasn’t a problem. It was even more appreciated that there were more businesses led by women because we also have a set of skills different from men, which makes us good leaders with more empathy. Our way of managing companies is more sustainable. I think it’s a great combination. We also would like to have good balance in our team because we definitely need the man energy. Sometimes it will keep on changing in this direction and it doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman. It’s just the idea has to be good and the people behind it. 

How the female approach in business contributes to society

Women are more empathetic. It’s against stereotypes, but from my point of view, women are quite empathetic. Sometimes we overthink, which is bad from one side, but from the other side, we think about many topics while when we have a task, we not only think about doing this task, but we very often also see what will be plan ABC, what to do and the next step.

Thanks to this, we are good at optimizing stuff because we are seeing a bigger picture. We also see the consequences, what it does to the world, what will be the consequences of my actions, and how it will influence someone. And I think by seeing it in the bigger picture, we also are able to deliver more sustainable and more long-lasting long-term solutions to the world.

We are also more understanding regarding working culture because we have to multitask very often in our private lives and to combine business with running a family, home and taking care of a lot of people, we are caregivers. I think this set of skills guarantees that businesses run by women are definitely sustainable and also kind of bulletproof because even if there is some sudden problem appearing, I guess we are used to solving it quickly because it’s just our daily life. This makes it quite an interesting environment to work with. We can learn from each other a lot and it’s good that we take from it. 

The biggest challenges for Heilo  

In our case, as we delivered a hardware product to the market, nowadays, it’s a bit more challenging for us. First of all, to find out the importance of the product and what it does to the world, how it helps is possibly more important than another software optimizing app that you can definitely scale and make a huge amount of money on it in one year. Sometimes it’s more important when you look at something like the long-term effect that it does to the world. 

Our solution, it’s hardware. So we need quite a lot of funding at the beginning to produce it because we have to produce quite a lot of pieces. The production specifics are complicated. You cannot just produce 10, 20 or 50 pieces. When you are ordering components or ordering production, it has to be a minimum of 1000. Or the best would be like 100,000 pieces. And this makes the barrier of entrance to the market quite high. So our biggest challenge at the moment is finances. So to get the required funding, to  start the production, because then we are sure we are able to sell it because our product is to be sold internationally

The market is huge. However, to start with, we need a lot of funding and what we sometimes struggle with, we are competing with software companies where they can show great traction and business development in a shorter time. But when you think about its value of it, and what it does for the world, I think this is something that is not always taken into consideration. The financial results are important for the investors. This is why in the way we are focusing, we would love to work with people or business angels or investors who value this.

To do a business is great, but to do a business that does something good to the world, that gives back to the world, this is great. These are investors and mentors and partners that we are looking for.

EmpoWomen and its help 

This is great that such programs exist because this is exactly what I think they are focused on. They want to help companies who want to do something good. So the major value of it is to do something good for the world. It has to be a business whose aim is to help somehow to make the world better, to improve something in the world. And this has to be the biggest focus.

And this is with our company. It exists to help children to be healthy, to live a healthy life, not to struggle with so many diseases that are caused by breathing toxic air. And thanks to such programs like EmpoWomen, it’s not only that we get a bit of funding that can help us to grow the company, to develop, to put ourselves to the stage where we are more visible to the investors.

We plan to spend the money that we got from EmpoWomen, on the first production, to put the first pieces on the market. We have to be able to advertise it, to show destruction, which is so important for the investors and put it on the market. But it also gives a lot of mentorships, leadership, a lot of content, very valuable content, and the occasion to share experiences or to hear from experienced startuppers who had very similar challenges.

We’re facing very similar challenges that we do. They’ve already been there so they can share it. They can prevent us from making those mistakes that they probably did as well. This is very helpful for us, especially at this stage where we are just before entering the market to address some questions and to work with people who are more experienced than us to learn from them.

A goal for Heilo for 2025

By the end of 2025, we would love to already be after the first, bigger production. So at least 1000 pieces of our product that we can put to the shops.

And in the next year explore the market. We know that it would be great to be everywhere, but we also know that it’s not that easy. So we want to focus. We have a plan for how to go step by step. We want to start and test on our local market, which we know the best. And then we have two other markets that we want to explore and start from there.

I guess we will do some other activities to just check the market and to see If the demand for special features is important, but this is another thing that we’ve learned. Of course, we would like to do it all, but it’s not possible. It’s better to focus on some specific task and deliver it and learn from it.

Then thanks to this, to be three steps ahead and not constantly kind of go one to the front and three in the back. So by the end of next year, we would love to have the first 1000 pieces sold on at least two markets and to have feedback on what is the best next location for our product and eventually the features that should come with it.

We would love to have good feedback from the parents if it’s helping their children.