Our Story

The Moment That Started Everything

In 2014, I was preparing for a trip to a country I'd never visited before. I remember the anxiety — not the excited kind, but the kind that comes from not knowing. What's the weather going to be like when I land? Is the tap water safe? How do I get from the airport to the city? Which neighborhoods should I avoid at night? Do I need a visa? What plug adapter do I need? Is Uber even available there?

I opened one app for flights. Another for hotels. A third for weather. Then Google for visa requirements. A travel blog for safety tips. A forum for local customs. A currency converter. A packing list app. Before I knew it, I had twelve tabs open and two days had gone by — and I still didn't feel like I had the full picture.

That's when the idea hit me: why isn't there one place that just… knows?

One app that could take a destination, your dates, and your travel style — and bring planning, comparison, and destination context together before you go. Travel purchases would still be completed with the provider.

That idea became Guidera.

From Idea to Obsession

My name is Cyriac. I'm an immigrant who moved to the United States to build a better life — and I've been building things ever since I got here. I'm a product and software engineer, currently working at Anthropic, the company behind Claude. By day, I architect software systems. By night (and weekends, and holidays, and lunch breaks), I've been building Guidera.

This project has been my obsession for the better part of seven years.

It didn't start as an app. It started as a notebook full of ideas — sketches of what a perfect travel companion would look like. What information would it surface? How would it feel to use? What would make someone trust it enough to plan their entire trip around it?

I filled notebooks. I mapped out user flows. I studied how travelers actually prepare for trips — the fragmented, frustrating process of piecing together information from a dozen different sources. I saw a problem that no one was solving well, and I couldn't let it go.

The $50 That Almost Ended It All

In 2019, I was ready to bring Guidera to life. I knew I couldn't fund it alone, so I launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, asking for $100,000 to hire developers and designers to build the first version.

I got $50.

Fifty dollars. Out of a hundred thousand. One single backer.

I'd be lying if I said it didn't break me a little. I questioned everything. Was the idea bad? Was I bad at communicating it? Did people just not care about this problem the way I did?

For weeks, I sat with that disappointment. I thought about shelving the project entirely. Moving on. Focusing on my day job. Being realistic.

But I couldn't stop thinking about the problem. Every time I traveled, every time a friend asked me for trip advice, every time I watched someone scramble through five apps trying to plan a weekend getaway — I knew Guidera needed to exist.

So I made a decision: if no one was going to fund it, I would build it myself.

Building It Solo

I'm not a "move fast and break things" kind of builder. I'm the kind who researches deeply, architects carefully, and builds to last. So that's what I did.

I chose React Native as the foundation so the product could share a portable architecture. The current public-release work is focused on iOS; an Android release should not be assumed until an official listing is available.

I already had deep skills in React and database architecture from my career, so the transition was natural. I picked Supabase for the backend — real-time, PostgreSQL-powered, with edge functions I could deploy without managing servers. The architecture I needed was ambitious, but manageable for one person if I was strategic about it.

And so I built. Function by function. Screen by screen. Feature by feature.

I designed the database schema. I built the search engine. I integrated travel APIs. I designed the UI. I wrote the backend logic. I tested on real devices. I iterated. I rewrote things when they weren't good enough. I rewrote them again.

For years, the project moved slowly — because I was one person with a full-time job. But it moved.

Then AI Changed Everything

When large language models became mainstream, something clicked. The vision I'd been carrying since 2014 — an app that actually understands travel and can give you intelligent, personalized guidance — was suddenly possible in a way it never was before.

Before AI, the best I could do was display curated data. With AI, Guidera could think. It could take your destination, your dates, your travel style, your dietary restrictions, your budget, your companion type — and generate a complete trip intelligence package. Not just a list of hotels. A real understanding of what your trip would look like.

AI gave me the conversational travel assistant I'd always envisioned — one that could answer "What should I know before visiting Dubai in Ramadan as a solo female traveler?" with a response that covers dress code, restaurant hours, cultural expectations, safety considerations, and weather — all personalized, all in one place.

I built an AI-provider architecture that can use supported business APIs for different tasks and fallbacks. The system supplies only the context needed for a requested feature, and the Privacy Policy identifies the current provider categories and data involved.

The years of architectural groundwork suddenly had an engine worthy of the chassis.

What Guidera Is Today

Guidera is the travel companion I wished existed when I was planning that first trip in 2014. It brings planning, comparison, and destination context into one product.

AI Trip Intelligence: Tell Guidera where you're going, and it generates a complete destination preview — weather, costs, safety, cultural guidance, visa requirements, local laws, what to pack, what to wear, dos and don'ts, emergency contacts, and more. You choose what you want to see. No information overload. No digging through ten apps.

Search and Compare: Flights, hotels, car rentals, and experiences from available providers — compared in Guidera. When you're ready to purchase, you go directly to the provider to verify the final price and terms.

Community and Local Guides: Traveler community tools and a Local Guide application path. Identity verification is not a background check, professional-license check, endorsement, or safety guarantee.

Safety Context: Informational safety zones, scam awareness, neighborhood context, emergency contacts, and cultural guidance. Guidera does not continuously monitor travelers or replace emergency services.

Expense Tracking: Scan receipts, track spending by category, and stay on budget — all within the same app where you planned your trip.

Conversational AI Assistant: Ask anything. "Is the tap water safe in Bali?" "What's the best way to get from Narita Airport to Shinjuku?" "Do I need a visa for Morocco?" Guidera answers — with context, with nuance, with your specific trip in mind.

This Is Product Number Six

Guidera isn't my first product. It's my sixth.

As a solo entrepreneur — while holding down a full-time engineering career — I've launched five products before this one. Each one taught me something. How to ship. How to prioritize. How to build systems that run without babysitting. How to design for real users, not imaginary ones.

Guidera is the culmination of all of that experience, and it's the one I've invested the most time, research, and heart into. Seven years of thinking about this problem. Thousands of hours of development. A database schema I could draw from memory. An AI architecture I designed prompt by prompt.

It's not backed by a venture fund. It's not built by a team of fifty. It's built by one person who believed in the idea enough to keep going when the crowdfunding campaign returned fifty dollars. One person who decided that if the world wasn't going to hand him the resources, he'd build it with the resources he had — his skills, his time, and an unwillingness to let a good idea die.

What's Next

Guidera's current release work is focused on iOS. Official availability will be listed on guidera.one when confirmed.

The roadmap includes continued improvements to planning, collaboration, community, and AI-assisted travel tools. Roadmap items are not promises of current availability.

But the mission hasn't changed since 2014: no traveler should ever feel unprepared.

Whether you're visiting a new country for the first time or you're a seasoned traveler looking for a more organized way to plan, Guidera is designed to provide useful context before and during a trip.

Welcome to Guidera. I'm glad you're here.

— Cyriac
Founder, Guidera
Product & Software Engineer, Anthropic