Introducing BadJupiter

Like so many great ones, this story starts at a bar on a beach in the jungle.

Thailand

The reason I was in that bar on that remote beach was I’d sold my company, quit my job, and was taking a break. I had spent the past several years traveling all over the world for work and had found a lot of cool places in the process. Now that I was finally taking a break, I was on a mission to find more cool stuff, in a part of the world I didn’t know a lot about. I was wishing there were a way to connect with the other people like me I knew must be out there who knew about stuff I wanted to find.

We Explorers needed a way to collect and share and discover insights, and to connect with each other around common interests.

Yelp Sucks

We’ve all wasted plenty of time searching for new places on Yelp and TripAdvisor and Google maps. The problem is not that the information isn’t there, it’s that its buried among useless reviews and advertisements. Those platforms don’t know me. All they know is what I ask for, and the only info they have to work with comes from zillions of faceless people and bots that have no connection to me.

But that’s just the first half of the problem. Fundamentally these platforms are not designed for recording insights. People post reviews on Yelp either because they’re trying to promote a restaurant or to let the world know a hotel has bedbugs. These are not the places to save personal notes about discoveries for the next time you’re in Paris.

Explorers and Enthusiasts

Not everyone scours the world curating lists of tiki bars and swimming holes. The ones who do are Explorers, and they need a way to capture their discoveries so that they’re never forgotten and always accessible.

But there are a lot of people who aren’t necessarily creating their own lists, yet are still very selective about how they spend their time. These folks will put in a little work to find the great stuff. They are Enthusiasts, and they know some people they trust for certain information. For them, a recommendation from within a trusted network is far superior to an anonymous review or promoted advertisement.

Flip the Script

For the Explorers, a great in-the-moment solution for capturing insights and context just didn’t exist. For Enthusiasts, while Yelp and TripAdvisor and similar platforms look a lot like insight discovery platforms, their entire model is built around delivering your eyeballs to their advertisers.

The script needed flipping. Capturing places and insights had to be as simple as sending a text, with the focus on what the user says about a place instead of just the place itself. And discovering and organizing information had to start with the user and his trusted network. Finally, interests and insights are very subjective things: what my friends and I think about a taco place might not agree at all with your opinion. And that’s as it should be — neither of us is wrong. Interactions and dialog should shape a user’s worldview, which should in turn help with qualifying recommendations that are hyper-personalized for that user.

Everyone’s Assistant

Imagine having a personal assistant you can just text any time you want to remember something or get a suggestion. Now imagine this assistant is smart, listens well, and never forgets anything, so the more you interact the better the recommendations match your specific preferences. Finally, imagine that this assistant has unlimited capacity and can be everyone’s assistant at the same time, creating possibilities for connecting people with similar interests who would otherwise never know about each other.

Just a Mobile Number

We designed BadJupiter with the personal assistant model always top of mind. Your unique user id is your mobile number; no usernames or passwords. Communicate with simple English text messages, just like talking to a person. When BadJupiter has something visual to show you — a map, for instance — it creates a secure, authenticated mobile web link. There is no app to download and install. And because BadJupiter only shows you places that are most relevant to you personally based on specific requests you make, there is no unwanted advertising noise.

So Let’s Explore!

BadJupiter is everyone’s personalized assistant for capturing, sharing, and discovering all the best places and activities. We are launching officially in a few days, during Startup Week in Austin, home of BadJupiter World Headquarters. For updates these last few days leading up to launch, you can sign up here.

To get started with BadJupiter today, all it takes is a mobile number. So come on, let’s explore our world!