In this episode, we speak with Lisa Altieri, founder of BrightAction, a SaaS platform designed to empower people and organizations to take meaningful climate action in their daily lives. Lisa shares how her commitment to protecting the planet and advocating for strong climate policies led her to create a tool that bridges the gap between intention and action—helping two-thirds of Americans who want to help the climate but don’t know how.
Lisa discusses how BrightAction supports cities, companies, and individuals in reducing their carbon footprint by focusing on five everyday behaviors that account for 42% of U.S. emissions. She also unpacks how she built the platform as a solo founder, the challenges of marketing and founder-led sales, and the importance of designing for behavior change. Her journey highlights the importance of being deeply connected to your mission—and what it means to build something you simply can’t not do.
Episode Quotes
On turning climate advocacy into entrepreneurial action
I decided that the most important thing to me was to focus my work on protecting our beautiful planet and doing what I could to really make a difference in climate change. I was spending a lot of time outside of my career organizing and advocating for strong climate policy, and this was when there were a lot of us out there spending time really advocating for strong policy, and we really didn’t see it happening.
And so I started to really see this chasm growing between where climate policy was at and where science said we needed to be. And I started to really think about what else, in addition to policy, could we be doing to help move climate solutions forward? Because at the end of the day, what really matters is to actually go and implement the solutions that are going to address climate change and create a more sustainable, livable future for everyone.
On building a sustainable ESG business model
There’s a lot of perception that if you’re making a positive impact, you’re not gonna have a sustainable business model. And I think that’s completely not the case. There are so many opportunities to combine impact with creating a sustainable business—ongoing, recurring, sustainable revenue, and opportunities.
When I thought about building this [BrightAction], I thought about how to create a business around that. And ultimately, what we’re creating is something of value. And I think that whenever you’re creating something of value, there’s a way to have that value be recognized and included.
On building with, not just for, your customers
Connecting with the people who have the pain point you’re trying to solve, and inviting a few of them to be part of your journey and your development is a really powerful strategy to kick off
things and help you to not only get to market and get customers, but also to make sure that you’re building something that’s gonna be useful and be attractive to your buyer.
Start when not starting isn’t an option
You should only start a company if you can’t not do it. Because it takes that much of you. It has to be something that you are so compelled to do, that you feel so strongly about, that you just can’t not go do it. And you have to be in it for the long haul. You have to be ready to dig in and spend the time to make it work. There are gonna be times that are hard. You’re gonna hit stuff that you’ve not done before. It’s tough. It takes a lot to figure out when you hit barriers and get past them. And so, just be ready to commit the time. Be ready to dig in. Best of luck and enjoy the ride; there’s nothing like it ever.
Show Links
- BrightAction
- Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
- SaaStr Blog (Startup Sales & Marketing)