Mirvise Najafe: Co-founder at GoodAPI

^{Joe Fox (00:00.989)}
Hey, everyone, Joe Fox here. Welcome to another episode of Retain Grow Thrive. I'm your host, the President at Growave. And I'm very, very excited today. I'm not sure if this is coming in at the same time because of the way that we launched these episodes. But recently, I obviously had another very, very cool gentleman on talking about environmental sustainability. But today, I'm really excited to welcome Mirvise

and he's going to be here talking about the good API. And I think this is going to be a really, really good episode. I think it's really important that we're all doing our part to help the environment and sustainability. So I'm really, really excited to welcome Mirvise. Mirvise welcome to the show. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing with the good API? Because I think this is really, really crucial listening for the audience.

_{Mirvise (00:45.676)}
Yeah, thanks, Joe.

_{Mirvise (00:53.28)}
Yes, that's good. So I'm revised on the co-founders of Good API. Good API is really meant to do two things for helping brands. One is to make it really simple to make a sustainable sustainability program as part of their e-commerce journey. So whether you want to plant trees for order or remove a kilogram of ocean bound plastic, we want to make it like you could really take 10 minutes and set up that campaign right away. And then the second thing we want to help brands is we want to take

any impact you're making out of a paragraph in an about us page. Like, we support reforestation and actually blend it in parts of your entire e-commerce journey. So, know, integration with Klaviyo to make sure emails go out, integration with Growave so you can redeem, you can plant trees in exchange for points, integration with Shopify Flow so you can do it for every review. And we have like integration with customer accounts. Every customer can see their personal impact based on all their orders. So really blend.

impact as part of the e-commerce journey so that it actually pays back dividends to the brand itself. So that kind of good API does in a nutshell. We focus a lot on verified projects. So we plant trees in Madagascar, sorry, in Kenya, Brazil, in the United States. We also remove ocean-bound plastic in Southeast Asia and Egypt and Brazil. But the projects we work with are highly verified. have

deployed at these sites to monitor the work to make sure that if we say a plant a tree is being planted, we actually have exact record of that tree being planted. And not only planting, because putting a seed in the ground is super easy, but it's important to actually watch it grow over five, 10, 15 years, because that's when the carbon sequestration happens, right? So the trees need to mature and partners that we work with have land access rights.

^{Joe Fox (02:39.834)}
Yes.

_{Mirvise (02:46.528)}
and make sure they're committed for that long term to make sure the trees actually mature and develop and have the impact that we claim it will.

^{Joe Fox (02:55.815)}
love that. And I think, you know, you're 100 % right. It's so important to be able to track that sustainability and to be able to actually manage those projects and watch them flourish. Pardon the pun grow. But my advice, tell me is, is what you're doing, you know, obviously it's incredibly like, you know, from looking from an outsider's perspective, it must be incredibly rewarding, right, to be able to like really bring this to the masses.

_{Mirvise (03:08.13)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (03:24.139)}
you know, you mentioned very clearly about helping e-commerce brands contribute to this. may I ask what is the, what's the kind of conversations that you typically have with the brand when they want to get involved with the good API? it very much like, this is the impact you can have, or is it more, this is the impact that we've already had.

_{Mirvise (03:46.424)}
Yeah, I think it's a combination of things, right? Sometimes we speak to brands that have been doing something like this on their own. Maybe they're manually sending a check every month to a nonprofit or to an organization that does this kind of work. But it's very opaque in terms of what they're getting back. And it's very manual. So through the GoodAPI, it not only automates it, but we provide a lot of that images, photography, videos of the work being done on the ground.

So they can actually embed that in their storytelling. So that part, that's one kind of conversation is like, how can we do what you're already doing, but in a much better transparent way. And then for some brands, they may have sustainability as part of their brand value, right? Maybe they're using sustainable materials and their sustainable packaging. And this just kind of adds another layer of sustainability to their operations because now they can actually plant trees or remove ocean-bound plastic.

^{Joe Fox (04:18.949)}
Nice. Nice.

_{Mirvise (04:45.198)}
and tell that story to their customers. So it really depends on what stage a brand is at. We think that it's never too early to start a sustainability impact. They didn't know that old phrase, like the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the next time is today. So we literally help brands start at any stage, get this program started.

^{Joe Fox (05:02.35)}
Yes, couldn't be more fitting. Couldn't be more fitting.

_{Mirvise (05:12.974)}
It started to engage their eco-conscious customers as well.

^{Joe Fox (05:17.541)}
I love that. And I think, you you mentioned Shopify earlier. We're obviously at Growave heavily involved in the Shopify ecosystem. And I think I'm, I have to say that I see a lot of brands and up and coming brands that really put a lot of this CSR and sustainability at a really big focal point of their brand and not for a sales, you know, cliche kind of a

look at us, we're doing the right thing. But I think from a genuine sense of purpose and a genuine sense of care, I've seen a lot more, you know, kind of sustainable fashion brands popping up that are doing really big numbers as well. Like I think it used to be a little less mainstream and there'd be a very specific audience. But may I ask, do you think that the younger generations are kind of, would I be correct in assuming that the younger generations

_{Mirvise (05:54.808)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (06:09.297)}
are really, you know, kind of adopting the sustainability practices a lot earlier on and, you know, planting the trees a lot earlier on, so to speak.

_{Mirvise (06:18.926)}
Yeah, I think if you look at the statistics, they say like 70 % or 80 % of Generation Z customers, they're more likely to purchase from a brand that is giving back to the planet versus one that doesn't. So I think the consumers today, especially the younger generation, are much more in tune with the impact of their transactions. And they're thinking about their future and the kind of world that they're going to inherit.

^{Joe Fox (06:32.463)}
Wow.

^{Joe Fox (06:46.969)}
Yes.

_{Mirvise (06:48.126)}
they're really keen on whether through their personal work or through their e-commerce actions to somehow make a meaningful, even if it's small, give back to the planet. I've got two little girls, right? And I think about their future and I think about the planet that they're going to inherit from us. And so that's kind of my inspiration behind the work we do here to make sure they have a world that they can play in. And a lot of the consumers that we work with

sort of the brands that we work with, have customers that think about the same way, especially in like, you know, home decor, children's products, cosmetics, jewelry. We find that a lot of brands, especially with female audiences, they tend to be more empathetic and they're really looking forward to giving back and thinking about their future, children's future, to make sure that it is sustainable and beautiful and a great place to live and play.

^{Joe Fox (07:47.876)}
Absolutely. love that. And talk about a really strong vision that's, you know, guiding your principles. I really love that. And congratulations on having two daughters. That's, that's amazing. And the, the next kind of thing I want to kind of dive into is how did you, you know, how did the good API come about? What was your background? Have you always had this really strong focus on sustainability? You mentioned, you know, your daughters are big

_{Mirvise (07:56.814)}
Thanks.

^{Joe Fox (08:16.065)}
part of that vision and that and a catalyst catalyst for that focus. But is this something that's always kind of, you know, been been a part of your thoughts or

_{Mirvise (08:17.442)}
Yeah.

_{Mirvise (08:25.206)}
Yeah, so my background is in product management. So I've worked with startups and large public tech companies building digital products. In one of my gigs, I used to work for a company called Ecobee. We used to build smart thermostats, very similar to Nest in the United States. And the promise behind smart thermostats like Ecobee was that it helps reduce energy usage around your house to make sure the AC and the heating systems turn on at the optimal times and run for optimal amount of time.

^{Joe Fox (08:37.751)}
Okay.

_{Mirvise (08:54.636)}
Right. Because heating and cooling is the biggest energy consumption in the United States and Canada households. So that's kind of where one of the seeds was planted, pardon my pun, around using technology to make impact at mass, right? And reducing our own environmental footprints. So that's where it of started all. And then once I, you I've always wanted to do something my own when I...

^{Joe Fox (09:00.779)}
Yes.

^{Joe Fox (09:05.54)}
We'll be using those a lot, so don't apologize.

_{Mirvise (09:23.672)}
got into e-commerce, one of the companies I was looking at is called Tentry. They're out of Vancouver, Canada, and they plant Tentries for every product they sell. So that's kind of their promise. They're a huge brand. And I looked at them and I thought that's an incredible program, but the amount of effort it takes to build and launch a program like that is a lot, right? So you need a whole sustainability team to go and verify these.

^{Joe Fox (09:33.217)}
Wow.

_{Mirvise (09:52.335)}
partners that you work with. You need developers to create assets and widgets and extensions to tell the story, a sustainability page. So we were like, how can we democratize that ability so that someone with like 10 people in their brands, 10 employees can have a similar program as that as a company who has like 500 employees, right? So that's why a good API came in. We wanted to, we want to be the sustainability team. Like, you know, behind the scenes we

^{Joe Fox (10:14.561)}
Yes.

_{Mirvise (10:20.686)}
vet out the nonprofits, we get certificates from them, we make sure that we geo coordinates of the trees that are planted. We got all these records and verify everything so that you can just focus, brands can focus on, know, like building their products and selling, and we take care of all their sustainability. So we're basically a sustainability arm. And that was kind of the inspiration, like both my work at Ecobee and some of the work I saw with other big brands that are doing this.

^{Joe Fox (10:45.739)}
Absolutely. love that. so, tell me a little bit more because I, you know, being from Australia originally, and you know, there's this close affinity with like Indonesia and Southeast Asia. And I've, you know, I've traveled a lot through there and you know, there was always these big stock differences when you see an Australian beach versus going to Southeast Asia and seeing, you know, the sheer amount of pollution.

_{Mirvise (10:59.875)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (11:12.982)}
not just in the water, but on the beaches and everything as well. You mentioned that the good API, know, besides focusing on, you know, carbon emissions through planting of trees and everything like that. You also mentioned there's the cleaning up of the oceans and Southeast Asia was one of the locations you mentioned, but I just want to grab on to grab onto that because it's relatable to me. Tell me a little bit more about how that process works.

_{Mirvise (11:13.1)}
Yeah.

_{Mirvise (11:28.397)}
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

_{Mirvise (11:38.967)}
Yeah, so one of the biggest problems in coastal cities within 50 kilometers of the ocean, such as a lot of cities in Southeast Asia, is that there's not really a good infrastructure for plastic recycling and plastic management. So what ends up happening is a lot of the population would chuck the plastic bottles, plastic bags to the side of the road or anywhere. And then you have a rain downpour that washes

^{Joe Fox (11:52.758)}
and

_{Mirvise (12:05.599)}
all that plastic into the riverbanks, to the rivers and the oceans, and as you said, the beaches, right? So we work with partners, one of them is called Plastic Bank, which actually pays folks in Southeast Asia, in these countries to go collect plastic from riverbanks, from the beaches, from any lands around the ocean, right? Take it to a designated recycling depot that is operated by them.

^{Joe Fox (12:11.413)}
Yes, yeah.

_{Mirvise (12:34.339)}
There the plastic gets weighed, they get paid based on the amount of plastic they return. The plastic then gets cleaned, processed, recycled into like little granules and then it's sold to companies like Windex, which create, recycle plastic bottles for their Windex sprays. So it's really like a holistic circular economy that's built because not only are the local population being paid, but they're also trained, The importance of plastic recycling and

^{Joe Fox (13:02.377)}
Yes?

_{Mirvise (13:04.483)}
the amount of money they get paid, get benefits for healthcare and education, but also they're passing down this knowledge of plastic management down to them and their children, right? And we get cleaner oceans and cleaner rivers in return. So it's a really beautiful program that both benefits the planet and the local population there.

^{Joe Fox (13:08.406)}
Nice.

^{Joe Fox (13:24.029)}
Absolutely. And I really love those kind of initiatives that are circular. So not only is it kind of recognizing this immediate benefit of, of what's being contributed, but as you said, it's like a lot of the times I don't think people are maliciously going out and damaging the environment. You know, it's, it's from a lack of options or a lack of understanding or lack of education. But I really liked the fact that this process.

_{Mirvise (13:40.463)}
Mm-hmm.

^{Joe Fox (13:50.078)}
you know, encourages better habits because there is that educational piece that evolved passed on to other generations. And, know, the, the long-term hope of that is that it continues to become stronger and stronger. then, you know, obviously one day, you know, all, all being well and, everything and initiatives like yours are employed so much that it's, it's going really, really quickly in a, you know, net zero fashion, as opposed to growing to a point where it's uncontrollable.

_{Mirvise (13:54.477)}
Yeah.

_{Mirvise (14:17.294)}
Yeah.

You almost want to put yourself out of business where you don't need to do this anymore because everything, the system's already in place to plant trees or remove, they don't need to remove plastic because everything is recycled in such a efficient manner that you don't need to do that anymore. So, and I think that's kind of the future we want to work towards.

^{Joe Fox (14:22.27)}
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (14:35.527)}
Absolutely.

Yeah. One of the rare startups where, where having nothing to do and is considered a win as opposed to a failure. So that's, that's awesome. I love that. And, and, tell me, you know, what is the, what does the future look like for the good API? Yeah. I, I can sort of like imagine that obviously you want to continue scaling and expanding and more regions and more customers and more impact, but is there anything that you sort of kind of see?

_{Mirvise (15:01.092)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (15:08.02)}
coming on the roadmap, you know, from a, guess, quote unquote product, you know, kind of, kind of functionality wise.

_{Mirvise (15:15.093)}
Yeah, so we're driven by our customers, right? And the feedback they give us and the kind of impact they want to make. One of the things our customers want to do is carbon neutral shipping is one thing that we come across quite often is how do we through Shopify, know, automatically look at the weight of the product, the distance it's going to travel from the fulfillment center to wherever the customer's house is, the mode of transportation, whether it's through airplane or through the car, know, calculating the carbon emissions and actually

^{Joe Fox (15:44.292)}
wow.

_{Mirvise (15:44.783)}
you know, sequestering the same amount of carbon out through carbon removal programs to make that a carbon neutral shipping program. So that's one option. One of the other things we hear a lot from our customers is that they want to give back to the planet, but sometimes they want to change it to give back to a children's AIDS program or to a Veterans Affairs program or to an animal shelter, right? So one of things that we're exploring is how can good API, which Hope Mount says,

^{Joe Fox (15:49.735)}
Wow.

^{Joe Fox (16:05.948)}
Yes.

_{Mirvise (16:14.191)}
good for the client, good for the business, can expand from not only climate impact, but also more social impact initiatives as well to give customers the flexibility they want. For the meantime, we're focused on highly transparent, verified climate initiatives. That's where we've started, but down the road, we want to help customers make any impact they want in a seamless, easy way so that they can focus on their business and we help them make verified impact.

^{Joe Fox (16:40.36)}
love that. Yeah, I've got a I got a lot of, you know, obviously, the environment's incredibly important to me, but I've got a lot of causes that I kind of donate to through whether it be my wife and I through our church or ones that are, you know, relevant and specific to us. And then I've, you know, I a lot of friends who are veterans and all of that sort of thing. And that's definitely an area, you know, particularly

_{Mirvise (16:51.491)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (17:04.084)}
You're from Canada. I'm from Australia. think we probably do a bit better of a job in it than what I see is done in the U S in terms of looking after veterans. So that's, that's awesome to hear that's that's on the roadmap, but I think the impact you're having, you know, by being very niche and focused on it in environmental impact and, you know, net neutral, shopping experiences is really cool. So that's, that's something to be really proud of.

_{Mirvise (17:13.103)}
Mm-hmm.

_{Joe Fox (17:31.558)}
Lastly, I, you know, I'd love to be, I feel like we could chat forever. So I'd love to do a part two of this and, you know, continue, continue to see how your journey's going. But I would love for the audience, you know, to be able to take some action, you know, from, from this podcast. think that's super important. I think, you know, especially when people are engaged with this and we all know how much content is out there and you know, how busy our days are and

_{Mirvise (17:36.035)}
Yeah.

_{Mirvise (17:47.246)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (18:00.295)}
Sometimes we have the best intentions, but we get sidetracked by something else. So I'd love it if you could, my advice, explain to the audience, what is some quick ways that they can implement this? Like, for example, if they're a customer of Growave, a customer of Shopify, how do they get involved with the good API?

_{Mirvise (18:20.643)}
Yeah, I think if you search, look for us in Good API on the Shopify app store, if you search for plant trees, tree planting will pop up. You can see we're the number one app. We've got over 200 five-star reviews. We also make it really easy and risk-free to try it. The first 100 trees are covered by us. The first two kilograms of ocean-bound plastic are covered by us. So it's completely free. And we do that because we want not only to plant trees and...

^{Joe Fox (18:42.3)}
Wow.

_{Mirvise (18:46.989)}
but also allow customers an easy way to try things out and set it up without actually worrying about the cost. So that's one way. And two, I'm open on LinkedIn. Reach out to me, Mirvise Najafe. You'll see my name there. Any questions you have, any concerns, reach out to me. I can provide a lot of information about where we plant trees, the kind of trees we plant, the verification we do, the monitoring, and its overall impact. So I love talking trees and there's a

I think it's a beautiful story to tell for any brand and happy to kind of help answer any questions that your audience might have.

^{Joe Fox (19:22.345)}
Love that my vice. Thank you so much for that. And just to add to that point, I'll make sure those links are in the show notes, your LinkedIn, the Shopify app store listing and your direct website. But I think, you know, one of the things I really love about what you guys do is the video content and the storytelling that you're doing, you know, about actually showing what happens and what's involved. So I encourage the audience to, to go check that out and

_{Mirvise (19:29.262)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (19:49.042)}
You know, if you are a customer on Shopify and e-commerce brand, which I know a lot of the listeners and watchers are, please go do something about this. you know, at least try it and see what it looks like for you. think we can all be doing better to be helping the environment. I know some people may already be doing their things external to this and hopefully you are, but I think this is a really quick, easy, impactful win to have.

_{Mirvise (20:16.878)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (20:18.573)}
And from a partnerships perspective, if any of our partners are watching this, which I know you are, please make sure that you check out the good API because you have very good reach to be able to get this really impactful legacy driven product to be able to into more hands and do more good in the world. yeah, I think that's important.

_{Mirvise (20:38.285)}
Yeah, and the Earth Month is coming, April 2026. So it's at a time where all your customers are even more attuned to the impact they're making to the planet. So it's actually a great time to even launch a program. So that's something to keep in mind as well.

^{Joe Fox (20:42.425)}
Yes. Yes.

^{Joe Fox (20:56.742)}
Absolutely, absolutely. No, thank you so much for that. And look, thank you so much for advice for coming on. I really enjoyed this conversation. I will be definitely, definitely suggesting this to a lot of our merchants and, and, know, people in my network. No, thank you. I think, I think it's really important that, you know, people do this work. And I think a lot of people want to do these things and they don't necessarily know how to get started or.

_{Mirvise (21:02.115)}
Yeah, thanks.

^{Mirvise (21:09.977)}
Thanks.

_{Mirvise (21:19.726)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (21:21.999)}
anything like that. And I think it's really impactful that you're actually doing it and you're making it easy for, you know, e-commerce entrepreneurs to do their part as well. So thank you for that.

_{Mirvise (21:33.027)}
Yeah, thanks for having me, Joe. was really nice meeting you, chatting with you and hearing your story and sharing mine. So thanks so much.

^{Joe Fox (21:39.235)}
Absolutely. Thank you so much for advice and you'll definitely be coming back for a part two. I'd love to, you know, be, yeah, I'd love to be able to chat about the impact you've had, you know, in the, in, you know, the next 12 months, but you know, looking retroactively. So, yeah, that'd be really cool. And, audience, you know, as I mentioned, please check out those links below. I think everything that my bias is doing with the good API.

_{Mirvise (21:43.616)}
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

^{Joe Fox (22:05.04)}
These are all incredible initiatives, as I said, that I think you should all take a part in. So please check out the links below. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Retain Grow Thrive the Growave podcast. I'm your host Joe Fox, and I'll see you again with another episode soon.