Israeli Success Story - Way to Stay : the closest you can get to traveling

Crif : You are the founders of Way to Stay, a new innovative startup that offers creative experiences. What is exactly Way to Stay ? 

Jennifer : Way to Stay is a platform connecting creators to a global audience by offering online experiences. In other words, we are enabling anyone to learn cooking with an Eritrean chef, work out with a ballerina from the Israeli Ballet, learn how to paint a self-portrait with an artist from Romania, or even straw marquetry. People will connect and socialize with each other while learning and sharing a good time. And all of this happens online, through video call.

The idea is to meet people we would never meet otherwise, and have a good learning session, date night, or family time! 

Crif : This project is very recent and you have developed it in a very short time. What made you start it and what are your goals? 

Jennifer : My co-founders and myself started brainstorming about the pains and difficulties of creators today. We realized that today more than ever artists, artisans and performers are struggling - not only to make a living, but they are also missing the social interactions they are used to. 

On the other hand, more people are now working from home and looking for new ways to find connections and experiences. It is thinking of these facts that Way to Stay was born. Our ambition is to help people share their passion and skills with participants - all of this without leaving their home. We like to think that this is as close as it gets to traveling. 

Crif : You are already offering over 30 experiences from more than 9 countries. How did you find and select these artists and who are they ? 

Jennifer : Indeed, we worked pretty fast ! We created the platform in a week, featured 30 creative experiences from 9 countries in two weeks, in our third week we got our first bookings ! 

We started selecting people we know. The three of us are into arts and crafts and we also like to socialize. Over the years, we met so many interesting and creative people from all over the world that we decided to feature them first. Then, word of mouth! We realized that the community aspect of Way to Stay was strong enough for people to refer their friends for being featured on the platform.

It was a lot of fun meeting new people, and testing the experiences with them !

Crif : You are French and Italian. Why did you decide to found your business in Israel? Are you living the Israeli startup dream ? 

Jennifer : It’s true that the Israeli startup ecosystem boosts ideas, creativity and confidence. It is the country with the highest density of entrepreneurs per capita, and it creates a dynamism that pushes everyone to always think out of the box to find new ideas. Living in Israel, or coming often to Israel definitely helps to get things done! But most importantly - we are having fun !

Crif : Way to Stay is offering international experiences. What is the Israeli touch of it ?

Jennifer : Many hosts are from Israel because that’s where we started the product. That’s why we have the chance to have amazing Israeli chefs, professional dancers, music composers, and painters from here as our first hosts!

Very shortly after featuring them, we had interests from other countries such as Romania, Italy, Japan, Brazil or Korea. We are receiving feedback from all over the world and more very interesting experiences are coming soon!