Most people, if they got this money in a prize, wouldn’t hesitate to indulging in vices and women. But we haven’t worked so hard to get to this point just to throw it all away and repeat the cliché story of the poor person who gets fortune and wastes it. For a couple of years now, I’ve been reflecting on what I call cycles of dissatisfaction: patterns that others have already lived through, which are inherited and repeated. An idea that obsessed me and that I captured in my novel Cansancio y libertad (Weariness and Freedom, 2022). That’s why, for me, a fundamental part of life consists of identifying what mistakes not to make and what good decisions to take.
For two young Colombians who grew up with the shortages of lower-middle-class families, $15,000 is a fortune. It is especially so for me, who had been covering Gurwi’s expenses with credit card debt. However, we are aware that it’s a limited budget for building a company and living. Still, it is a budget, and it’s the great opportunity to stop being jack-of-all-trades who work with our bare hands. Finally, we’ll be able to have more hands on the team, better tools, and a better quality of life.
Winning first place in the #BuildInPublic category of RevenueCat’s Shipaton is an immense achievement for us. Even more so being Colombians living in Colombia, a country where getting capital is difficult and corruption permeates everything.
I will never forget the episode with the then Minister of ICT, Mauricio Lizcano, who first congratulated our work and then ignored us. It’s the perfect example of how state officials can be aware of valuable projects and never support them because their only interest is to enrich themselves and their friends. Nor will I forget my attempts with SENA’s Entrepreneurship Fund — the only state funding avenue for entrepreneurs — where I was not only rejected but was not even allowed to reapply in the Magdalena region. Nor all those other powerful figures who learned about us and decided not to help us.
For all this, this achievement is gigantic, although we hope that over time it will become the smallest of them all.
During the next three months, our focus will not be on periodically adding new content, but on organizing ourselves, improving our processes, documenting our technology, and making it evolve. Doing things right means doing them slower than we’d like, and this approach has been what has allowed us to get here. With these solid foundations, we hope that by February 2026 we can offer a constant and robust flow of classes.
Towards a New Way of Learning
Below, we share the major steps we’ll take during the next year. They don’t have a specific priority order, as we’ll work on them in parallel.
1. Legal and Organizational Foundations
Currently, we are in the process of incorporating as a company in the United States, which has forced us to suddenly learn countless things that no one prepares you for. And that is precisely, in part, Gurwi’s mission: to complement what school doesn’t teach but is crucial for adult life. Understanding how a company works is a perfect example.
Parallel to this legal process, we will be focused on documenting our technology and detailing the roadmap we present here in general terms.
2. Learning Vocabulary Doesn’t Have to Be Boring
A simple way to add value while we build our class catalog is to enhance Gurwi’s capacity for language learning. Thanks to your feedback, we know that many already use the multilingual function to learn English.
That’s why we want to take it to the next level: you’ll be able to see the meaning of each phrase or word with a tap, save them to your personal vocabulary, and then test yourself with quizzes to ensure you’ve retained them. These quizzes will be created based on the words you save yourself. Additionally, we plan to add support for more languages, probably German and French. This doesn’t mean that in the short term all our classes will be available in these languages, but it’s worth starting explorations little by little, as the community demands.
3. Towards a Coherent and Cutting-Edge Aesthetic
One of the compliments we receive most is about our user interface. It’s clear that Colombians aren’t used to Colombians creating software that looks beautiful. However, we’re not satisfied. We want to unify and elevate the style of our illustrations and interactive visual material.
This involves finding an art director to lead Gurwi’s visual aspect and, at the same time, explore the potential of generative artificial intelligence.
We’re looking for talent! If you’re a digital artist, UI designer, logo expert, or Motion Graphics animator with exceptional talent, we want to meet you. Write to us at [email protected].
4. The Power of Video and a Renovated Home
Although our interactive .gurwi format is the heart of the app, we know there are topics that are better explained in video. That’s why we plan to integrate it as a new content option. We want part of your home to transform into a kind of educational TikTok, where you can discover knowledge capsules quickly and visually. The reading format will continue to be the protagonist, but now it will be accompanied by new functionalities to make your experience more dynamic.
5. Preparing for ICFES Should Be Free
We have a commitment to the more than 500,000 high school students in Colombia who take the State exam every year. We will create a completely free training module, full of exercises and simulations, so they can be much better prepared for the exam.
6. Agentic Era
Unless you’re a developer deep in the AI world, the term “Agentic Era” might sound like Greek to you. Let me explain it easily: we see Gurwi’s future in three major branches:
- Official Content: Classes created and verified by our team.
- Consulting: Connection with human experts.
- The Agentic Branch: This is the game-changer.
The agentic branch means that anyone will be able to create an interactive class in .gurwi format just by writing a command (a prompt). We want you to be able to transform that boring university PDF or that dense work manual into an agile and easy-to-digest lesson. This is the technology that will allow us to truly scale and that will open the doors to the venture capital financing we seek.
7. What If I Don’t Want to Learn on My Own?
Although our goal is to make topics like law, taxes, or bureaucracy easy to understand, we know that sometimes you need a guide. That’s why Gurwi will allow you to connect with verified advisors and instructors who facilitate your learning. Educators get clients and you choose the professional who will accompany you, whether to learn a new skill or to help you with your tax return.
8. Gurwi for Businesses and Governments (B2B and B2G)
“Gurwi Educators” is the software we use internally to create and manage all the app’s content. It’s our secret engine. Now, we want that technology to be available to other organizations. Companies can use it to improve their team training and internal knowledge management. And yes, we dream of Gurwi reaching schools and universities, but to democratize knowledge at that level, we’ll need government entities to do their part too.
9. And If That Weren’t Enough: A New project
Despite this new momentum, Jonnier and I will continue in our jobs. Now, in addition to fulfilling our responsibilities and building Gurwi, we’ll give life to a new project that excites us immensely. Like Gurwi, it seeks to improve people’s lives, but from a completely different industry than education.
It will be fascinating to look back in a year and see how much of all this we managed to turn into reality.