Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lizia Santos. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Lizia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
It was really a merge of three very active roles in my life: travel lover, mom, and journalist. As a travel lover, I enjoy getting to know the true core of destinations. As a mom, I want to spend high-quality time with my family away from lines and truly experiencing things; as a journalist, I value reliable and up-to-date information and nurturing great sources for this purpose.
When trying to plan awesome and authentic trips for my family, I couldn’t find the info I was looking for and kept getting stuck on the “top things to do” kind of lists, which simply list the main crowded attractions. As a journalist, I know that if I could find sources of information on destinations, planning would be much easier. I couldn’t find it, so I built a platform to alow people all over the world to connect with these reliable sources and plan truly authentic trips with the info they gather.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I never saw myself as an entrepreneur, and ever since I can remember, I knew I wanted to be a journalist working abroad and covering global stories. Life took me through this odd journey and transformed me into this multi-tasking, jack-of-all-trades communication specialist with an emphasis on business and tech, and added to my natural curiosity for culture and history and passion for travel, I somehow blinked and became a passionate tech/travel founder.
I’m very passionate about diversity and observing how people all over the world interact with themselves and nature in so many different ways. Travel opens doors for us to access this and learn so much in the process. However, the industry bottled it up in a few attractions that represent only a small percentage of what destinations are about. My ultimate goal is to change how people experience destinations and open doors for truly authentic travel, where you get to know the true core of cities, and how unique you are; where you leave your destination fulfilled, appalled by how amazing and unique it is.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Being a mom and tech travel founder is a very unique challenge that not many dare to undertake. It just adds so many extra daily difficulties to the already brutal journey of building a startup. The lines are constantly blurred, and you have to be a risk-taker and at the same time play safe for the sake of your family. I had the idea for Citycatt when I had three kids under 3, and looking back, just the fact that I kept on going despite the many daily challenges, is a story of long-term resilience, and I hope to inspire others to take the leap, as I truly believe parents make wonderful relatable and resilient founders!
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
When I first began my Founder journey, I was told I needed a business plan detailing my plans for the future. As I moved forward after having worked hard on the plan, I learned and realized it is frankly impossible for a startup Founder to plan ahead with precision, and being attached to the plan brings more harm than anything. In my case, it even led me to lose money.
Right after I lost a lot of money, I had the privilege to participate in an accelerator that taught me the importance of being lean and learning in the process, being open to iterations and pivots. Fast forward, my plan couldn’t be further from my current reality and I know now that execution has a much bigger weight than careful planning on the startup journey.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.citycatt.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/citycatts
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liziasantos/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcRuOefyit45CzQJ93tAidA
Image Credits
Lizia Santos Citycatt