Jesús Pérez Paz

How I got here

I am co-founder and CTO of Pilgrimz, a cultural-mediation platform for heritage sites and territories. I build with AI as the multiplier: agents handle the volume, I make the decisions.

Before that, I was COO of Digital55 and spent ten years at Scalefast, from employee number six to SVP, through its acquisition by ESW. In between came OMAIA, my first AI startup, which closed without finding its market and taught me to start from the problem, not the technology.

It all started with a History degree and an internship building websites that I never left. Working on cultural heritage today closes that loop. I also care about keeping the web open and accessible to everyone.

The thick line is my main career; thinner lines branch off for parallel work and experiments.

Jesús Pérez Paz

  1. Pilgrimz

    Co-founder and CTO, – present

    cities
    600+
    countries
    90
    published routes
    1,500+
    languages
    9

    Hands-free, offline cultural trails for travellers, run by tourism offices and heritage sites.

    Read the Pilgrimz case

  2. Freelance and advisory

    – present, ongoing

    Freelance development and consulting.

  3. AISight

    – present, ongoing

    My own native iOS and macOS app: Apple’s on-device AI combined with a self-hosted, privacy-first web search back end. Built alone.

    App Store, March 2026

    Read the AISight case

  4. Digital55

    COO, –

    A software development company.

    Read the Digital55 case

  5. OMAIA

    CPTO and co-founder, – , shut down

    First attempt at an AI startup. We knew we wanted to build with AI, but not what problem to solve. Shipped an MVP without market focus or numbers to test against, and shut it down.

    Lesson: start from the problem, not the technology.

  6. Scalefast

    –

    Joined as employee number six. The company grew to 400 employees and went through a reported ~$300M acquisition by ESW.

    Acquired by ESW, 2022

    Roles, newest first

    1. SVP Software Agency –
    2. VP Engineering –
    3. Head of Software Development –
    4. Project Manager, one of the first; later ran the Madrid PM office –
    5. Full-Stack Web Developer –
    Read the Scalefast case

  7. Mozilla

    Volunteer contributor, – , Paris, merged into my main career

    Code for the MDN platform (HTML, CSS, JavaScript and some Python), early Firefox OS apps, and code for the localisation team’s tools.

  8. Nexway

    – , Madrid, then Paris

    Nexway held a stake in Pepita, later Scalefast. That led to the move.

  9. Revista Exégesis

    Co-founder, technical side, – , finished, still online

    A free non-profit online comics magazine: 43 issues. I built, maintained and hosted the site; today it is a static archive on Netlify.

    See Revista Exégesis in the archive

  10. eCliente

    – , merged into my main career

    Started as an intern, then web designer and integrator, part-time while studying History.

  11. Aftershare

    – , merged into my main career

    Freelance design work, mostly banners, with light programming.

  12. Hard fork: from History to software

  13. Initial commit

    History degree, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Older side projects live in the archive.