My family loves traveling. Every time there is a break at school we are trying to use the time to visit new places, enjoy new tastes, and experience a refreshing sense of freedom. Since we discovered AirBnB[^1], Booking.com[^2], and companies alike a few years ago our approach to traveling changed a lot. Freedom of self-check-in, possibility to feel at home renting whole places and living close to locals. Amazing! Until this year's experience: at 11:00 PM, after waiting with 3 kids for 45 minutes for the host to turn up we found the place in a total mess. Not cleaned after previous guests, stinky and awful (I'll spare you the details, the picture below should be enough)...

Software startups are often created by technical founders. What they build is often great in terms of provided features and - to say nothing - clumsy in the visual aspects. In the era of information overload people stay focused on a single piece of information for seconds. This extremely short period of attention must be enough to attract them to your product. Are you prepared to win them as your new customers?

Over the past few years, we have witnessed significant progress in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). From chatGPT, a state-of-the-art natural language processing model, to a self-driving car that can navigate complex urban environments, the capabilities of AI systems have reached new heights.

How many startups are there? This question drove me to think about what makes a young company successful and how to maximize the chances. This post may be relevant if for some reason you can't make it to the mainstream market (go live) and you feel that your business is stuck a bit.

On November 29th, 2022 I attended a meetup organized by co.brick Venture Building that covered the topic of how to finance startups. Great speakers from startups (Meetlify, Stream Sage), VC (Level2 Ventures), and companies specialized in acquiring public money (GRANTS.CAPITAL) talked about the pros and cons of getting money from VCs and public funds. In this post, I cover my learnings from the meetup that are worth considering before going one or the other way to fundraise.