Meet Gorjan Jovanovski | CEO & Co-founder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Gorjan Jovanovski and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Gorjan, maybe we can start at the very start – the idea – how did you come up with the idea for your business?
Our team comes from Skopje, North Macedonia, one of Europe’s most polluted cities in winter. But we didn’t really know what we were breathing. It smelled like “winter”, is how we romanticized it. What it really was, was smog, 20 times over EU limits. Yet, without data, no one knew that cancer was in the air instead of love.

As a student, I was browsing the web, looking for ideas for my first mobile app. I was learning to code via YouTube, when I stumbled on the government page of our local Ministry which had some crazy numbers from a few official air quality measuring stations. I analyzed the numbers, and was blown away to see how bad the air actually was. But… why wasn’t anyone talking about this? No news, no social media, no people on the streets?

That is when I realized that while the data was there, if it wasn’t made accessible and understandable, it couldn’t achieve it’s goal. That is when I realized I needed to do that, and AirCare was born. A small mobile app that displayed air quality data in an easy-to-digest way.

That was back in 2014. Today, AirCare has over 1 million downloads, is available in every country, and is used from California to Cambodia, awakening people and starting movements!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
The main thing that makes me proud as a CEO is building the right team. It’s very hard, but once you nail it, it’s amazing. With my co-founder, we go back to high school, sat together for 4 years, and have been close ever since.

We were always diagonal opposites for many things in life, but that is exactly what made us the right dream-team for starting a venture together. We could counter balance each other in decision making, the trust was amazing, and the collaboration stellar. I know people usually say, don’t start a business with friends. Well, this was an exception, and a damn good one too!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
The Vodno mountain for sure! It’s a wonderful green lush oasis that towers over the city. A morning hike up the mountain half way, then the gondola to reach the top. Take in the fresh air up there, enjoy the views all around and have fun with all the locals that made it up there too.

Perhaps for lunch we’ll go down into one of the traditional “kafana”s, where we would enjoy Macedonian baked beans and some wonderful BBQ. Rakija is also a local drink to try, and a Turkish Balkava to finish the meal.

After a walk around the old brutalist buildings of Skopje, we would finish the day at the local Speakeasy, enjoying the masters of cocktails do their magic!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Techstars Berlin – the accelerator that took us onboard and helped us shape our small B2C app into a B2B business that is now helping change industries using data. What we managed to learn in such a short time being part of this program, was simply mind-blowing. The mentors, the team, the other entrepreneurs, it was an experience like no other.

Every day we worked hard, from 9AM till 10PM, yet we were never tired. Laser focused and with great feedback, AirCare has had an amazing transformation all thanks to everyone from Techstars Berlin’s 2023 cohort!

Website: https://getaircare.com

Instagram: instagram.com/aircaretheapp/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aircaretheapp

Twitter: twitter.com/airCareTheApp/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aircaretheapp