The Founding of The Jenny Project
Why do we think adventure stories are so great yet we are unwilling to take the steps to go on great adventures?
Above is a question I have asked myself regularly over the past 5 years. The answer I have come to is that going on an adventure often requires a heavy amount of fear and anxiety that can be debilitating. This question and answer have turned me on an extensive path to understand my own motivations and calibrate my actions according to the objectives I want to achieve. My overarching goal (the one you'd see headlining my daily reminders) is to maximize positive emotion in my life and minimize negative emotion. This goal seems obvious, but is it?
How do I do increase positive emotion (or at least attempt to do this)?
For one, I increase the potential for positive emotion by doing known things that will extend my life and its quality (exercise, diet, meditation). At the same time, and somewhat counterintuitively, I focus and practice doing certain things that provide negative emotion (fear and anxiety inducing actions and behaviors).
Why focus on negative emotion?
Because the next time(s) I face a similar event that causes negative emotion (whether willingly or not), the fear and anxiety continually lessen with each turn. This does not mean I'm looking to cause myself pain for no reason, but it does mean I embrace things like Noah Kagan's challenge of asking for a 10% discount at a coffee shop (guaranteed rejection). Further, overcoming fear and anxiety to do something adventurous is perhaps the most positive emotion inducing thing you can do, in addition to helping others thrive and grow. Thus, you actually turn the negative emotion into a longer term positive emotion strategy.
What does this have to do with the Jenny Project?
Fair question. The Jenny Project is a company not an individual. Nevertheless, my goal is to build an organization that in its existence maximizes positive emotion and minimizes negative emotion across four pillars: employees, investors, customers, and the external community.
Does this strategy work for a company?
I guess we'll have to experiment and see. The principles I am laying out here, however, are nothing new and have been used in successful organizations across time. See Collins and Porass' Built to Last.
What does this mean for a company?
For one, to get as much positive emotion as possible we need to maximize the lifespan of the organization (as long as there is more overall positive than negative emotion). This means keeping the interests of profit in mind. This does not mean, however, that profit is the central tendency propelling the company forward. For another, we want to go on an adventure ripe with opportunities and challenges pushing us towards our ultimate goal. To do so we need to persevere through all of the challenges, hurdles and negative emotion inducing feats, knowing that these things will make us stronger in the end and make the journey worthwhile. We need to not shy away from taking risks, experimenting and learning, and being comfortable in the unknown. We need to continually try new things until trying new things becomes muscle memory.
What is the Jenny Project's primary goal?
At the Jenny Project, our primary objective is to create positive emotion for the four pillars: employees, investors, customers, and the external community. I'm confident we can get there by aligning incentives and developing the proper organizational infrastructure. Will it be perfect, hardly. But it starts by laying the ground work and the core principles we follow (which is the intention of this post if you hadn't gotten there yet 😊).
What is the mission of the Jenny Project?
To be strategic guides of growth through uniquely understanding human responses to stimuli before they occur.
Can I put the mission more simply?
Ever see the movie the Matrix? If not, watch it. As an organization we want to be like the Oracle in the Matrix. We want to guide Neo to help him overcome the many obstacles he faces in his goal to free humanity and make the world a better place.
How do we achieve our mission?
We build a virtual, representative AI sample of the world that evolves as the world changes. Using this sample (or samples from the sample) we design and conduct experiments where our AI-personas are introduced to stimuli and we analyze their responses using standard statistical practices. By knowing how they respond to a stimulus, we can prepare for if/when that stimulus occurs in the real world.
How do we extend our lifespan to increase positive emotion?
By providing businesses services and software that enhance current strategic processes. These tools will help businesses:
1.) Know your product, know where to play
2.) Know your customer, know how to play
3.) Know your competitor, know how to win
Where are we now?
We currently offer a unicorn forecasting system that provides all five of the desired traits of strategic planners:
1.) Accuracy -- it matches or exceeds the accuracy of the latest statistical methods.
2.) Context -- unlike statistical black box approaches we can provide context, reasons and assumptions behind our forecasts.
3.) Non-Complex -- All you need to do is enter the item you want to forecast, the region, the level (daily, monthly, quarterly, yearly), and horizon (how many periods in the future) and you're good to go.
4.) Customizable -- You can add as much customization and context as you want to build scenarios.
5.) No data limits -- We can run forecasts without any data (though you can add your own to help).
Our system is the only system that we know of on the market that can offer all five of these traits at the same time.
We also offer customizable services such as our price optimization suite of tools. Ever want to know how different customers will respond to a reduction in price of one of your goods? How about one of your competitor's goods? Want to know what the optimal pricing strategy is for your customers compared to your competitors -- i.e. how to set a high enough price that brings in revenue that is not offset by a loss in volume? We can do all of these things and more per our customizable service. These services extend beyond price optimization to include identifying behavioral insights that cannot be obtained using modern technology and methods.
Where are we going?
On an adventure.
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