We spent 5 weeks in Paris asking a pretty simple question: can we land in a brand new city and build a real network from scratch? Paris is known for baguettes and romance, but we wanted to pressure-test the friendships + tech side of it—especially with that “1 in 4 people feel lonely” stat floating around. We had one ace up our sleeve (an open invite to crash at a friend’s apartment), but after that we basically did the uncomfortable thing: we put ourselves out there, met strangers, and followed the thread wherever it went. It started with an X post, then turned into founder meetups and deep conversations about tools and how people actually work. We met the team behind folk and talked about where it sits between spreadsheets, Airtable, and heavyweight CRMs like Salesforce—plus why “out of the box” matters for non-product people. We caught up with Slite, visited a hardware-heavy workspace, and talked education models with Augment (their take: entertainment is the door to education). We also hit Station F for Stripe AI Day, met Elad Gil, and walked away with a practical framework for investing: advice, governance, money—and being known for taste + helpfulness. Biggest takeaway: most people are up for connecting… you just have to say hi.