Three founders and a dream, halfway around the world
A personal note from our time at TechCrunch in San Francisco: the courage to show up, the people we met, and the work we’re carrying forward.
A note from the YNova founders · · Updated
Three founders and a dream we carried halfway around the world.
There are three of us behind YNova: Helen, Bonnie and Tamil. This October, we brought YNova from New Zealand to TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco. Seeing the three of us together in those photos still makes us smile.
Building a company can keep you very close to the next thing that needs doing. There is a product to improve, a question to work through, another decision to make. Then you find yourself standing together, far from home, explaining the idea you have spent so much time building. You get a moment to notice how far you have come.
A dream we could share in person
For us, the dream is to make international education more accessible. We are starting with an AI tutor that helps learners practise English, build on the languages they already know, and express their own ideas with more confidence.
In San Francisco, we could put faces to that work. Helen spoke on stage. At the booth, we had the chance to introduce YNova and talk with people in person. These photos hold a few of those moments.
The people we get to keep running with
We keep coming back to the phrase “controlled accidents”. You do the work, make the plans and find the courage to show up. You also leave room for a conversation you could never have arranged, or a connection you could not have predicted.
That is the part we wanted to keep in our reflection on the trip: the hard work alongside the unexpected connections, and the people who make the journey feel possible.
See Helen’s original reflection on LinkedIn.
Keeping the San Francisco conversations going
Our plan is to keep those conversations going and learn from them as we build. We want to stay connected with the educators, founders and people who care about making learning more accessible, and keep asking where YNova can be useful.
If we met in San Francisco, thank you for spending a little of your time with us. We would love to hear from you again. And to everyone who has been running alongside us from the beginning, thank you for helping us get here.
More sunrises to come.