We recently had the chance to connect with Lili Montes and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lili, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
Standing under the studio lights to pitch my startup, Limon, on the crowdfunding TV show, Go Fund Yourself! was a surreal experience I am so proud of, not because of the buzz or the hype, but because of all of the hard work it took to get there.
When Go Fund Yourself! hit us up and said we would be filming in just a few weeks, we went to work on our pitch with a few changes. By the time we were done with our pitch deck, we were ahead of schedule. We so got this — we have a solid week to practice pitching to some of our family, friends, and investors, so we don’t blow our big moment.
Then I got sick.
Really sick, 4-day high fever sick. The kind of sick where you cannot think straight. So the night before our film date, I finally felt better, and my Co-Founder/brother Ramon and I practiced our pitch to our diehard fans — our parents. I started with, “Hi, I’m Lili…” and I forgot everything else. 😳
Silence.
Then Ramon looked at us all, and I could swear I saw him utter, “We’re fu***ed” 😂 I rallied and came through with the practice pitch and crashed, hoping for a better day at the studio the next day!
Did we pull it off? Everything turned out even better than expected!
All in the same day, we got to watch our triple launch unfold: the TV episode airing, our crowdfunding campaign going live, and the app opening to users.
That stage was just the punctuation mark for a story that started when I was twelve years old with my first business, and was stitched together by a thousand tiny, persistent choices behind the scenes nobody sees.
What made it such a proud moment was that all the invisible work finally showed up in the world at once. I laughed because it was absurdly human: messy, imperfect, and somehow joyful. I felt proud because every hard, behind-the-scenes hour paid off in a single day of emergence — and now I get to build the next chapter in public, louder and more resilient than before.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Lili Montes, the Co-Founder and CEO at Limon, an audio-first travel app built to help people explore more, stress less, and travel easy. I’ve been a scrappy entrepreneur since I was twelve (hello, Catchy Kahootz), graduated from UC Santa Barbara, and spent years sharpening my skills in studio broadcasting, public speaking, and community-driven startups. I run the company with my brother, Ramon, and have assembled a diverse advisory board and cross-functional team to bring Limon to life.
Limon is all about bite-sized, voice-first travel stories that pair audio with photos. On Limon, you’ll find the kind of hidden gems and recommendations from friends that you’ll actually want to do — told by people who were there. People can browse, save, speak, and eventually buy creator-built itineraries so a story can turn into someone’s next daytrip plan. We’re a creator-powered travel economy built for Gen Z and Millennial curiosity, where authenticity leads to real-world action.
What makes Limon special is that the best travel recommendations come through voice, vulnerability, and lived experience. Everything we ship is obsessed with lowering the friction between hearing a memory and making one. We launched the app recently and are now in Early Access on the App Store and Google Play.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I was a bright-eyed twelve-year-old with more ideas than allowance and a very particular problem to solve: during the Great Recession, we couldn’t afford for me to play my two favorite sports, soccer and volleyball, so I asked my parents, “What if I made the money myself?” I launched Catchy Kahootz — handmade key-and-phone gadgets I sold at sports tournaments — and learned the essentials of business before I knew the word “pivot.” I pitched to strangers, set prices, hustled inventory between games, and discovered that people will pay for something that makes their day a little easier or more fun.
That early grit — building something useful from nothing — became my north star. I’d also fought through childhood phobias and learned how to overcome fear at a young age and show up anyway, which secretly set the stage for public speaking, broadcasting, and pitching ideas on very big stages later. By fifteen I was auditioning for Shark Tank; by college I was obsessing over content creation, local travel, and community-driven projects. Entrepreneurship didn’t feel like a career choice so much as the way I was wired: curious, scrappy, and allergic to “that’s how it’s always been done.”
So who was I, really? I was the kid who refused to accept “no” as final, who learned to sell with empathy, and who discovered that every small, persistent choice compounds. That’s the throughline from Catchy Kahootz to Limon — same tenacity, bigger canvas, and a softer, more human aim: to help people tell the stories that make places feel like home.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
There were moments I felt like folding the whole thing up, especially during COVID, when everything got scary all at once. My dad became a COVID long-hauler, and overnight our family’s rhythm shifted into caregiving, financial hardship, and a hundred tiny sacrifices: my whole family working from a two-bedroom mobile home, converting the shed on the sideyard into a room for my Co-Founder/brother, swapping sleep for late-night meetings, and trying to keep the startup lights on while the people I love needed me most. There were days when the deadlines, the uncertainty, and the emotional drain made “giving up” look like the easiest option.
That pressure didn’t break us — it made our why louder. Watching my family shoulder through pain taught me what resilience actually is: not a hero arc, but a thousand small refusals to quit. Those hard months sharpened my priorities, stripped away performative hustle, and turned every product decision into a moral choice: will this help real people? Will this create a brighter future for my family? Will this make travel more accessible to people of all walks of life? The answer kept me standing.
If I nearly gave up, I’m glad I didn’t. The grind became grit, and the grit became purpose. That pressure taught me to build with compassion, to move with urgency but care, and to celebrate the authentic, human work that can change lives.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
Overnight success doesn’t exist. What you see overnight just popping off with massive success is years and years of hard-earned work behind the scenes that goes unseen by everybody.
It’s people trying something, failing, getting back up, learning from every single pivot and twist along the way, and bettering themselves or their business.
Overnight success does not exist, but I would like to see everyone shoot their shot. Go for your goals, you’ll learn so much along the way, and no matter what, you’ll be so much farther along than if you never tried at all!
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
Ever since I was a kid, I deeply understood the value of time and living an intentional life. When I was 8 years old, I had a slogan, “never do nothing,” and honestly, I still abide by that to this day. In middle school, I was Student Body President and gave the graduation speech about how we all have the same 24 hours in a day, and that what we do with that time can either bring us closer to or further from what we want to do in life.
As an adult now, I see this more holistically, not just achieving your goals, but designing your life so it’s incredibly intentional. Find your perfect morning routine, carve out time in your day for health & wellness, make an effort to spend quality time with loved ones, still go toward your goals, but make sure to have some fun along the way. Create strong boundaries, protect your piece, and reflect inward to consider your values and what you want in life, because we only get one shot, so let’s make it the best we possibly can!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://limondaytrips.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lili_montes/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lilimontes/
- Twitter: https://x.com/lili_montes_
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lili.montes.5
- Other: https://linktr.ee/lilimontes
