This is a tough question since we’re talking about a community of brilliant and unbelievably motivated people putting everything on the line and risk massive failure in an effort to build things that regular people only dream about.  These are seemingly ordinary people who step out of binds of an ordinary life to solve real problems and achieve extraordinary success.  I have nothing but admiration for (almost) all of the startups whether they’ve burst onto the scene as a massive success or floundered around until they pull the plug.  Regardless, all of their stories are inspiring and a testament to the strength of the human person to innovate and grow.  It’s like picking which one of your children you like better, or whether you’d rather visit London or Paris, or whether an Aston Martin DB9 is better than a Vantage.  It’s just too difficult of a question to pick a single winner.

However, I’m only human and in the end picking favorites is what we do.  I’m clearly going to like the boy better, London blows Paris out of the water with little contest, and a DB9 is a monstrously better machine than the Vantage.  After establishing that, it’s safe to say that there is one startup with an irrefutably superior story than the rest … Babelverse.  This is a story birthed in the concept of globalization and incubating in the minds of Josef and Mayel for years.  Born in Greece by one English and one French founder, incubated in Chile, fostered in Silicon Valley, evangelized everywhere from Seoul to Stockholm, matured in London, and preparing to burst on to the scene in every corner of the world.  Many founders merely throw shit against the wall to see if it sticks from a bunker in a familiar environment, building beautiful apps with no logical use and no understanding of their target money, or playing with trust fund money because they couldn’t cut it in the banking world.  The founders of Babelverse truly live their business plan and exemplify their target market down to the details.  Months of living out of backpacks in countries around the world you and I will only dream of venturing to, meeting foreigners who they have no means of communicating with, and conducting business in the epitome of a globalized economic backdrop.  The simply get “it,” but not just “it” … all of the variables and pivots that go along with “it.”  They are the definition of glomads (which not so coincidentally is a term Mayel coined) wandering from customs desk to customs deck in search of an understanding of those who Babelverse seeks to help without any assumptions necessary.

This is a story years in the making, but far from over.  Josef & Mayel are an example of innovators determined to change the world at all costs, stopping at nothing, living on the cusp of broke and still having the same unwavering passion to push the boundaries of how we communicate.  This is what makes founders worthy of the success the will undoubtedly earn.  When Babelverse becomes a household name it won’t have been built the easy way, but with its ideology is sewn into the fabric of its history and the sweat of its founders.  That is the definition of an incredible startup story that we should all both respect and be inspired by.  Startups should be founded on passion and understanding for the problem they seek to solve and no one tells that story better than Babelverse.