Carving out our own lane

We have managed to produce updates for KURB at a break neck speed since its inception- but has that always been a good thing? While there is a clear upwards trajectory in the quality of the product with substantial UI improvements, search speed acceleration, greater vendor and brands coverage our traction has been relatively humble. This speaks to what some may think is KURB’s achilles heel but we believe it to be our strongest asset: that we under-promise and over-deliver. In this entrepreneurial landscape where investors lull startups into the ever accelerating seed-round cycle, seldom do you see a product that delivers on its promises even after millions upon millions of capital injection. But this is not the only way KURB carves out its own lane.

Since KURB’s inception we’ve visited enough tech and start-up events to allow us to reflect on our position within the space. It has given us some valuable insights on what a typical journey from rags to potential riches look, what pitfalls to heed and which strategies work. It has also allowed us to see patterns with these events. From what we’ve seen so far, the crowd here can be divided between seekers and providers, entrepreneurs and investors, or those stuck in the trenches and those “who’ve made it”. And usually, it’s the latter group who are given the mic, bestowed with the opportunity to share their wisdom. Though many of the stories, talks and panels have it in them to be emotionally stimulating, it is often difficult to deduce which morsels of information to treat as gospel and what to meet with scepticism. Because what may be true for one, may not be for the other, coupled with the fact that the meta in the tech start-up space changes like the weather — fast. My suspicion however is that many entrepreneurs (including us sometimes) lack the perspective to distinguish between truth and hype. And it’s arguably only the doing of the thing that’ll eventually grant you the capacity to see the nuance between the poles. 

If there’s one thing that is glaringly obvious about navigating this space, it’s that many brands look the same and talk with the same lingo, almost as if everyone is preaching for the same desire even though this desire is incredibly vague. Perhaps nobody really knows what we want, and what AI means, despite the fact that many industry-leaders like to sell the idea that we’re at the next frontier of humanity. Distinguishing the signal from the noise is difficult and we’re not there to reject the distribution of advice, knowledge and optimism regularly strewn about in the entrepreneurial space, but it can feel like a world where everything turns painfully repetitive. It’s ironic because if there’s one thing the 2026 entrepreneurial tech space prides itself on it must be its rebellious stance against the status quo, its capacity for innovation and the “human-transcending potential of AI”. It’s also easy to notice how AI has ceased to be a feature, but rather morphed into an all-encompassing identity of brands in general. Perhaps it’s a logical strategy, in times of political and economic precarity, to direct all energy into the industry’s flavor of the month. There’s a sense of safety and maybe even some perverted sense of solidarity in that. But how much of that sensation is justified, knowing that times change fast and many of the eggs in the AI basket can rot overnight? It’s going to happen sooner or later, and it’ll arguably be the companies who have an identity and purpose that extends beyond slapping AI on X problem that have a chance of surviving.

In some way, we are lucky to have a more skeptical stance towards the tech world in 2026. Though at the same time we very much would like to be part of the startup constellation, it can feel isolating in the inability to resonate on the optimism, and especially the collective tunnel vision on AI. And though we are very much a technological platform, our roots extend into the world of fashion even more. And it’s a world each of us at KURB never holds back our criticism towards. We want to contribute to it positively. But if we reflect on the dialogues we’ve had in the entrepreneurial space so far, it’s been a struggle to connect with the “fashion” aspect of KURB — how it fits in potentially improving larger global contexts of waste and exploitation within the fashion system, how it can give access to more and better clothing to more people for cheaper — how it essentially further enhances circularity within fashion. AI is a critical component of our technology, but putting it into our pitch does leave a weird aftertaste in our mouths; it’s part of our recipe, but we’re careful in not letting the ingredient overpower all others. Though we believe this is a healthy thing in the long-term, in the current zeitgeist it very much thwarts our capacity to communicate on the same AI-tuned wave length with others.