Polyglotte story

STORY

Copyright Polyglotte Inc.

#mystartupstory

Life,

I know from experience...


is a crooked street.


My invention,the olykeyboard, illustrates this truth.


It sprang from a lucky accident in my lifes journey...


...which has been a diverse one geographically, linguistically and culturally.


The idea first came to me a little after returning to the U.S. from France and Berlin, where I'd studied the German language and interned in art galleries.


I thought:


Why are there so many keyboard layouts in the world?


That's when it hit me.


v

I would invent a multilingual keyboard for polyglots, like myself!

Daniela SemecoFounder/CEOPolyglotte Inc.



I had my heart set on San Francisco.


I'd never been to the West or even seen the Pacific Ocean, didn't know anybody thereall I knew was that I was destined to go.


I'd managed to sell some odds and ends and come up with $250.


My dad thought I was crazy, but finally agreed to buy me a one-way ticket (which was all he could afford).


On March 28 2011, I left for San Francisco with $250 and a dream.


Image courtesy of Riad Djabri

For two and a half months I rode the couch-surfing wave before settling into my own place in San Francisco.


Luckily, I had my dad...


...to show me how the mind of a techie works.


He built the first prototype and installed it on my computer.


We worked for months improving the product, and I was able to add more and more languages.


I was experiencing a lot of challenges at the time.


I'd embraced local politics and become a freegan (someone who lives for free).


Id hooked up with Food Not Bombs and was eating for free, putting every penny I made towards the business.


A local street kid designed my first logo.


He was living on a roof when I met him, and I took him in and paid him in food and beer. To this day, he calls me Momma.


I founded Polyglotte Inc. as a benefit corporation on Jan. 1, 2013.


Shortly after, we were approved by Legal Services for Entrepreneurs, a program offered by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.


Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Thanks to them, we now have many pro bono attorneys.


On June 14 2013we released the beta version of our product.

Image courtesy of Renee Jones



Its been an adventure bootstrapping and getting to where we are today.



Image courtesy of Renee Jones

We're preparing an Indiegogo campaign to help finance our physical Polykeyboard.

Please follow us:Fb: Polyglotte_IncTwitter: polyglotte_sf


www.polykeyboards.com


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Polyglotte story