Hi Reader,

At Hal9, we help Startup Founders turn AI ideas into products—fast. Each week, we’ll share insights from our founder Javier, spotlight real customer stories, and keep you updated on what’s happening at Hal9 and beyond.

Event Spotlight

New Webinar: From Idea to AI MVP in 30 Days

Date & Time: Oct 16, 2025 · 11:00 AM PT
​Where: Online

Join the Hal9 team for a live webinar where we’ll walk through our proven 3-Stage Playbook for AI MVPs, the same framework that has helped dozens of early-stage founders go from idea to market-ready products in weeks—not months.

What you’ll get:

• A practical, step-by-step approach to validating your idea
• Real founder case studies showing how AI MVPs get built fast
• Clear, actionable steps to de-risk your idea and launch with confidence

👉 Register here​

Future Founder Happy Hour — San Francisco

Date & Time: Thursday, Oct. 9th at 6 PM PT
​Where: Underdogs Cantina

Join Javier and the Hal9 team during SF Tech Week for an evening of food, drinks, arcade games, and real talk with fellow founders.

Why join?

• Meet non-technical founders building ambitious AI products
• Swap stories, ideas, and lessons learned
• Leave with new connections (and maybe the push you’ve been waiting for)

👉 Reserve your spot here​

Javier's Insights of the Week

Javier shared some great insights on LinkedIn this week, including:

• AI isn’t plug-and-play​
  Many founders underestimate how much iteration it takes to get the AI right. The interface is the easy part—fine-tuning the AI is what makes your product sticky and keeps users coming back.
• You don’t have to be technical​
  Plenty of successful founders aren’t coders. What matters is knowing your strengths—industry expertise, networks, leadership—and pairing up with the right technical partner. (Or working with Hal9 to get your first product shipped fast.)
• Resourcefulness beats money​
  Investors don’t fund ideas; they fund proof. At Hal9, we ran lean—six months with almost no spend, even free Zoom—and focused on customer validation first. The scrappier you are, the more credible you become when raising funds.

Which of these lessons resonates most with where you are today? We'd love to hear from you—hit reply and let us know.

Founder Spotlight: MoneyHaven

Modernizing the Tanda with AI​
MoneyHaven, a pioneering fintech startup, is reimagining the Latin American tanda—a communal savings model—for the U.S. market. Their mission: tackle overspending and help users achieve financial goals through collaborative savings groups, supported by AI.

Hal9 helped MoneyHaven:
🚀 Build an AI-driven tanda app MVP in under 30 days
🤝 Validate the technical architecture for a scalable, full-stack solution
💬 Prototype an AI companion for personalized financial guidance
📱 Develop a custom in-app chat for savings group collaboration

The result? In just weeks, MoneyHaven moved from concept to a functional MVP, validating assumptions on user experience, backend infrastructure, and AI integration. This rapid sprint positioned them as an innovator in fintech, while laying the foundation for future iterations of their community-driven savings platform.

👉 Read MoneyHaven's full story.​

Let's Talk

We love talking with founders—whether you’re refining your idea or scaling your product.

👉 Book a 30 minute Strategy Call with Javier here to share your product or idea, and explore how we can help.

Or reply with your biggest AI product challenge—we’ll feature answers in future issues.

Talk soon,

—The Hal9 Team