Jenna Adkins, CEO of Zoo, “Just start!”
by Hank M. Greene, May 6, 2021
Jenna Adkins has had a meteoric rise over the last few years. As CEO of the Zoo, she has been at the core of building and leading a company that has reported unheard of year over year growth since its inception only 4 years ago, and is well on its way to taking over the communication device space with its wildly popular Mesh.
Jenna remembers a specific day, walking out of her Harvard business class on entrepreneurship, the initial inspiration for what would become the Zoo. From the first word spoken in that lecture, Jenna said that her imagination became the lecture, “…like when a pianist becomes the music.” Every word seemed like a roadmap for what to do next, and why. Jenna was only 22 when she walked out of that lecture, but had always persevered and worked to get what she wanted. Part of her DNA, from the experiences of her childhood, she knew anything was possible, the goal only took tenacity and perseverance, both of which she consciously cultivated. Being raised by a single mom, who was so busy trying to make ends meet leaving little time to spend with her children, Jenna had plenty of time to explore and discover. The result, across her childhood of exploring, discovery, accomplishment, Jenna felt something in the future calling, a sense of destiny. She remembered that specific Harvard class guest lecturer, Hank M. Greene. She said, “I remember thinking, he had the credentials, a handful of startups, one of which had become a global brand, and time with the largest global software company, both ends of the spectrum, with a degree of success at each.” Jenna said she remembers thinking, “Okay, his experience gives a certain am0unt of cred. Let’s see what he has to offer.” After that lecture, with the start of the Zoo, the rest is history.
I remember giving that lecture, and wondering, which one, or three, of all these kids will actually do something with this core idea just planted? I had no idea Jenna was in that class until this interview. We have all watched, with amazement, the record breaking rise of the Zoo, so I was curious about how this leadership team started, what was the core set of beliefs that enabled them to accomplish so much in such a short amount of time. So, why not ask. I remember reading Forbes, the “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” statement over and over again, which is now part of my DNA. So I reached out and asked Jenna for an interview. To my surprise, I received an answer, that she would be thrilled to sit down for a few minutes to talk.
Following is a transcript of the interview, which has been edited for clarity and length.
Hank M. Greene: Jenna Adkins is the chief executive officer of Zoo, a company she helped form and build from a coffee shop brainstorming session to one that is now leading the communication device space.
Thank you, Jenna, for taking time to share with us the story of how this all happened. And, on a side note, it’s really cool to meet you.
Jenna Adkins: Hank, it’s a pleasure. And, I’m so glad to see you again. Thank you for reaching out to make this happen.
Hank M. Greene: I want to start by learning about how your original team, the trio, decided that this was something the three of you were willing to commit to, the personal dynamics that led to the three of you deciding to place your faith in the future in each other.
Jenna Adkins: Yeah, after the lecture, I walked out, kind of in a daze, with a sense of how real, how possible it was to just start, and then grow the momentum. A classmate, Jed, saw me, saw that I wasn’t myself, and walked over and asked, “Is everything okay?” I had known Jed for a year, and had immense respect for his character. I knew that whatever Jed put his focus on would turn into something. At Jed’s question, I snapped out of my dream state and asked if he had time for a coffee. Not knowing what was up with his friend, and being the good friend that he was, he said sure. We headed over to our favorite coffee study hideout, a hole in the wall joint, when we saw another friend, Caroline, whom I also had immense respect for. I asked Jed if he minded if I asked Caroline to join us. So, the three of us sat down in the back corner of our favorite coffee shop, where I said, “Guys, what did you think of that lecture?” Caroline said she agreed with the premise, it was all classic business case. Jed was a little more contemplative and I think he was beginning to understand that possibilities started with just that, a start, and the right team. A few seconds later Jed responded, “Okay Jenna, what are you suggesting?” I said, “The three of us. Whatever it is, we will figure it out. The main thing is, we just start.” I remember, Jed, saying, “I’m in, there will be no ‘to the end.’ I’m in to make this happen.” And it dawned on me that had always been my mantra, and that here we were, the three of us, and that, yeah, the three of us were going to make something happen. At that coffee shop, at that moment was when I realized this was going to be something real.
Hank M. Greene: Okay, so it’s one thing to say you have a team, the dynamics required to build an engine is another. What did the three of you do next that created that spark, the start of momentum?
Jenna Adkins: That is an interesting question. As I think back on it, it’s as if the spark was already there and that we were part of an already existing momentum. What I mean is that each of us were, are, characters of action. It was because we were all sitting there, at that coffee shop, as a result of that call to action lecture, that somehow we knew that we had to do something, so what came out of our chat was a sort of action plan for what we were going to do next. I asked Caroline and Jed, “We need to pick a focus, a place to start our analysis to derive, build, our action plan from.” Caroline was the one who suggested, “Why not start with the lecture? If nothing else, it will provide a base point to start learning from. After all, what matters most is to just start.” I remember Jed’s expression of slight shock, I think because of the enormity of that goal, the one suggested in the lecture, and then within a split second, a smile, as in, “yeah, why not.”
Hank M. Greene: Mechanics — how did the three of you decide on how to proceed?
Jenna Adkins: It had only been what seemed like a few minutes and we were already committed to each other, to building something. There was this awkward pause, and I think we all realized it. Caroline had taken the action to suggest a starting point, which had certain implications — we needed to determine a need that we could reasonably fill, with no resources. Jed said it, “Okay, so, the reality of the situation, we have to create something out of nothing. Uh, I mean, we have each other, so what can we do to add additional resources. Let’s think about this, verbalize what we have available, and perhaps from that list will come something that will add a bit of fuel to this spark we are committing to.” I was a bit excited, and perhaps louder than should have said, “Kickstarter” which startled Jed and Caroline, but almost like a shock needed. The idea, loud, said that we could get funding, that all we had to do was figure out the solution and the message, both of which only took our time. We were absolutely capable of that. Caroline said, “Well then, the next thing is for us to create our brand promise, what is the problem we are going to solve?” Again there was a short, awkward kind of pause. And then Jed said, “Well Caroline, let’s follow your suggestion. Let’s take the lecture notes as far as they lead us, and then pivot when we reach a block.” That made sense since we had already agreed on that focus point. It was time to give this a break, to let Caroline and Jed go off and think about what we had just committed to, so I suggested we meet tomorrow to start building out a gap analysis, what did we need to do in order to have a product. It was the next day that we actually began to create measurable traction, a start. It was that day that we started documenting the design plans for the Mesh, the results of which we created a complete marketing message for Kickstarter.
Hank M. Greene: But that is only part of product. Tell me about the communication part, the biometric protocol rotator. How did that story start?
Jenna Adkins (smiling): Ah, yes. Interesting story. Earlier that year, I remember hearing a story on NPR, which I listened to on walks between classes, about a media company that had been hacked. Their new shows which were yet to be released were now available online. The story went on to tell about the risk to other media companies, the risk of being hacked and the risk to their digital assets, and the value to them. I remember thinking, there was a huge risk value proposition there, to the media industry. And then I remember thinking, that risk translates to each one of us. If someone could crack the online communication security issue, that would be a huge cash generator. So, one day, at our coffee shop “executive meetings” before we took on the name Zoo, I said to Jed and Caroline, “Hey, if, in this product, we could also guarantee that communication to the device was sender to receiver secure, wouldn’t that make whatever sexiness we build into the device even better?” We weren’t technologists, so they were both a little skeptical, and Jed did not want to take time on this. He thought that direction would impact our current needed focus. So, I threw out one more seed, I said, “So, if our product were secure, and cool, we would corner the market.” With that Jed agreed, but he wanted to limit the amount of time investigating that possibility, to mitigate any time sink risk. That was fair. And here is the funny part, it took no time at all to come up with a conceptual solution. It’s like the earlier comment, once we started brainstorming it was like the answer, the momentum was already there, we just needed to latch onto it.
Hank M. Greene: Tell me about that, the brainstorming session.
Jenna Adkins: Yeah, we decided to spend one of our coffee sessions just exploring this communication domain. We wanted to understand the basic construct of existing internet communication systems. We decided we needed a few weeks to each do research on this domain before this brainstorming session, so that we had some type of cursory knowledge.
So, there we were, three business school kids, brass enough to take on the internet communication industry. Little did we know we were also taking on the government, but that’s a story for another time.
The problem we set out to solve was internet communication security. So first, we stated what we thought we knew about it, the basics. We stated the obvious, there is an electronic network, across which bits are routed, between senders and receivers, and then when the specific receiver hears their bits, they turn them into meaning via some code. And that was the place we decided to start, the code. There is an agreed to dictionary between the sender and the receiver, a “protocol” so that the bits that are sent can be turned into meaning by the receiver, the protocol, or set of instructions for making sense of the stream of bits.
Okay, with that Caroline said, “Do you think we can add code to tie the message receiving code to a specific person?” And Jed said, “Like a biometric toggle? Why not? Fingerprint technology is nothing new. What if the Mesh had some way to biometric identify who was wearing it, and messages were encrypted to that biometric profile?”
So we added that to the specification for the Mesh that we were building for Kickstarter.
I was thinking of something else. It was a strange tact, but one I wanted to explore. I asked, “Caroline, did you ever create your own language as a kid, a kind of private made up language? What if there was a unique protocol for each unique biometric receiver?”
Jed said, “Okay, but then if I hack into the protocol library, I now have access to your unique protocol.” then, I don’t know why, but I thought of a rotator, so I responded, “Yeah, you are right. But, if I have a machine, a type of AI that continually generated new protocols, and I know your unique biometric ID, the system could generate a new protocol every so often, and only your client and the system would know the protocol sequence, and the protocol sequence would be updated by the system to the client regularly, then everyone would have a unique biometric secure communication system, and because it was based on a unique protocol system per receiver, no one would know what to listen to.”
And that was it. That was the start of the Zoo.
Hank M. Greene: Incredible story. Thank you so much, Jenna, for taking time to share your unique story. I’m sure it will inspire others to “Just start.” I’m looking forward to watching your continued success.
Jenna Adkins: Thank you.
References:
Protocol, Computer Science, Encyclopaedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/technology/protocol-computer-science
Biometrics, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometrics
Protocol Rotator Specification: https://medium.com/@hankmgreene/protocol-rotator-83bc67d25e08
Business School Lecture Notes: Thoughts for Disruptive Technology Entrepreneurs https://medium.com/@hankmgreene/business-school-lecture-notes-thoughts-for-disruptive-technology-entrepreneurs-15c807b3e968
Who is Hank M. Greene?
“I am what I said I am, a storyteller. But, you may be asking, from whence did I come and to where do I go? ‘Ten’ holds the key to where I go, and it’s to be determined from whence I came.”
Read the draft of Book 1: Ten by Hank M. Greene @ https://sites.google.com/view/time-a-trilogy/
Twitter at @hankmgreene or https://twitter.com/hankmgreene
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