The battle over the toilet seat being left up or down has been waged in many households over the years. A new startup says it's solved that problem.
Kevin Tang, who claims to have become something of a toilet expert, says some people just can’t remember to close the lid and seat in their bathrooms, helping prevent pets, personal belongings — or other people — from falling in. Outside the home, it turns out, there are times it is best when the seat is left up: Tang and his team of fellow student entrepreneurs learned that a raised seat at public venues keeps a toilet more sanitary — since a seat left lowered can become a mess when people don't bother to raise it before using the toilet.
After years of research and perfecting their toilet technology, Tang and his co-founders say they're now ready to roll out two products to keep bathroom users happy in both of these situations. Their startup, Cleana, is selling a self-raising toilet seat for commercial use and a self-lowering toilet seat for the home.
Tang is a graduate of Boston University and was named to the BostInno 25 Under 25 class of 2022. His co-founders include fellow BU graduates Andy Chang and Max Pounanov, among others. Tang said they met through cross-school mixer events and teamed up because they wanted to enter BU’s New Venture Competition after taking some introductory entrepreneurship classes.
“The first thing (the classes) tell you is go look for a really big problem that’s unsolved, that affects a lot of people, and that there’s clear value if you solve it,” Tang said.
'Absolutely disgusting public facilities'
The initial problem statement they devised was dirty toilet seats.
“I remember there was this one time I went into the bathroom in the College of Arts and Sciences … four out of the five stalls were just so disgusting,” Tang said. “There was really a striking juxtaposition between paying all this money to go to this really elaborate and fancy university in the U.S. — and them having all these resources, talking about all the facilities, yada, yada, yada — but at the same time, having these absolutely disgusting public facilities.”
After more closely studying bathrooms in Boston venues, Tang said they discovered the “free-rider problem.” People don’t bother putting the seat up when they need to pee or cleaning it when it gets dirty.
“What we discovered through a lot of trial and error is that in men’s restrooms as well as shared-gender bathrooms, if you simply keep the seat up between users, and you have it up by default when people walk in, it actually keeps the seat about 88% cleaner,” Tang said.
Cleana’s commercial seat lifts itself automatically after it’s left down for a set period of time. The seat also has an antimicrobial coating and a handle to move the seat.
'A lot of strong reactions'
When they started thinking about toilet seats for homes, the problem changed.
“Especially for women in homes, it gets some people really out of their seats when you say, ‘Have you fallen in the bowl before? Have you told your partner repeatedly to put the seat down?’” Tang said. “They’re like, ‘Yes!’ We get a lot of strong reactions.”
The company’s at-home seat automatically lowers itself after being raised for use.
Tang said the starting price point for its toilet seats will be $95, which is a lower cost than other brands. One of its competitors is Toto, whose price point is over $1,000. Toto’s toilet seat also requires a wall outlet, while Cleana’s seats are powered by the pressure exerted to raise or lower the seat, which is then used in a pneumatic system to move the seat in the opposite direction.
Tang declined to say how much funding Cleana has raised, but said its investors include the ISSA (the Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association), the Boston Beer Co., the Boston Bruins, Delaware North's family office, Varia Ventures and Launchpad Ventures.
Cleana has tested the self-raising seats at places like Lucky Strike in Fenway and the YMCA. Tang said Cleana has already pre-sold the seats to such customers as MIT, Stanford University and the Roche Bros. grocery chain. It plans to ship those orders in early fall.
He expects the self-closing seat to come out closer to the end of 2023.
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This article has been updated. The original version contained an additional company co-founder due to incorrect information provided to BostInno.
