😸 touch some grass

gm legends! I hope you had a great weekend whether you spent it chilling on a beach somewhere or shipping you're next big idea. In today's Leaderboard, we're diving into an app that forces you to touch grass, a less annoying grammar assistant, a LinkedIn search that actually works, and a discussion on the EU startup scene.

Touch Grass is an app that blocks your phone until you literally step outside. Using AI to verify real grass, it forces you to put the phone down, touch some greenery, and earn your screen time back. No shortcuts, no cheating, just go outside.

🔥 Our take: Most screen-time apps guilt-trip you into using your phone less. This one holds your apps hostage until you actually go outdoors. Brutal? Absolutely. But considering how often we say “I should really go outside” and don’t, maybe it’s exactly the kind of tough love we need.

GrammarPaw is an AI writing assistant for Mac that lives in your menu bar. A quick ⌃⌥Space shortcut brings up ChatGPT and Claude, letting you fix grammar, reword sentences, or translate text without leaving your app.

🔥 Our take: Most writing assistants feel like a needy coworker—popping up, underlining things, and generally getting in the way. GrammarPaw takes a different approach: it waits. No interruptions, no red squiggles, just a quick shortcut when you decide you need help. Feels less like Clippy, more like a good editor who knows when to stay quiet.

People Search GPT by Redrob is a search tool that finds people based on descriptions, not exact names. It scans 700M+ profiles to surface relevant matches for hiring, networking, fundraising, or research—without relying on LinkedIn’s clunky search filters.

🔥 Our take: Searching for someone on LinkedIn feels like playing 20 Questions with a broken search bar. Half the results are irrelevant, and the other half haven't updated their job titles since 2018. This promises a faster way to track people down without the usual guesswork. If it works, it might save a lot of wasted scrolling.

Europe loves to say it’s an innovation hub, but if you’ve ever tried to start a company there, you know the real challenge isn’t funding, it’s surviving the bureaucratic boss fight. Nika started a discussion on which European countries actually make life easier for founders, and the answers hit all the usual memes.

💬 "EU Inc." is real. Funding exists, but compliance, slow regulators, and grants with 50-page applications make scaling there feel more like a paperwork marathon.

💬 Estonia and Ireland get it. Estonia’s e-Residency and Ireland’s tax breaks make things smoother, though good luck explaining your setup to a confused banker.

💬 Germany remains undefeated in red tape. Want to register an LLC? €1,000 in notary fees, weeks of waiting, and an existential crisis over compliance laws.

Have you experienced the European regulatory purgatory? Have your own opinion?