---
# System prepended metadata

title: Jan's Core Message (February 2024)

---

Let's remember and set the context. 

Jan is actually a copilot, just like Windows Copilot, it increases productivity. It remembers your chats with it, so it's teachable intelligence. It can use the apps on your computer instead of you, so it can work for you. It has a data feedback loop, it gets better the more you use it, because it learns.

Given these features, Jan is an AI that does things for people and can learn from people. A personal AI in the truest sense of the word.

Before I elaborate, I would like to explain how I think with a quote. Not long ago **Martti Malmi** [shared](https://mmalmi.github.io/satoshi/) his emails with Satoshi Nakamoto. There are some good quotes about how he would describe Bitcoin. They describe Bitcoin as "**the digital P2P cash**". At first glance, it seems like a very nice category description, right? But someone says to Satoshi that it's a "**cryptocurrency**".

![Screenshot 2024-02-25 at 00.56.09](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJHwegO3p.png)

- **Satoshi**: Someone came up with the word "cryptocurrency"... maybe it's a word we should use when describing Bitcoin, do you like it?
- **Martti**: It sounds good. "The P2P Cryptocurrency" could be considered as the slogan, even if it's a bit more difficult to say than "The Digital P2P  Cash". It still describes the system better and sounds more interesting, I think.

Their announcement after that is as follows:  “Announcing version 0.3 of Bitcoin, the P2P cryptocurrency! Bitcoin is a digital currency using cryptography and a distributed network to replace the need for a trusted central server.”

From **The Digital P2P cash** to **cryptocurrency**!

---

## Mindset

In the beginning, we need to choose the main message that will tell our story the best and go the most viral. Then, if there is something better than this message, our users will find it, not us.

What will make Jan "sticky" is that it can tell this main message, what the product provides to people in its simplest form, and that it has the capacity to go viral. We can define it as "Your teachable AI" but that alone is not likely to go viral. 

So, just as **Rabbit** went viral with "your pocket companion" when announcing its personalized operating system, just as **Apple** combined its products with "think different", Jan should be able to do the same - what different examples! One of the most basic steps is to clearly define the main message. This message should point to how Jan will be described in the company of her friends.

### Example on a clear message

First of all, I would like to elaborate on this with an example. There is a tool called [Fireflies](https://fireflies.ai) - an AI tool that attends meetings and takes notes. It has seen a huge rise in the last 2 years and people are talking about it in their daily lives and they make their sales largely on leads from word of mouth. 

So why am I talking about this tool? Because this tool has created a new category of organizing meeting notes. AI attends the meeting, transcribes, takes notes, prioritizes and turns them into actions. Isn't it exquisite? It's both building the category and explaining the tool. 

So what kind of a core message did this tool try to find the magical words? First they wanted to describe the tool and defined it as "**a collaboration space**", then they moved to "**AI assistant**" like everyone else, but "make it stick" became a reality when they started to use their biggest benefits: "**Automate your meeting notes.**" 

Someone using Fireflies needs a collabration space or AI assistant, but they want the benefit of those, not them. If a tool with another description could automate their meeting notes instead of AI assistant, they would choose it... Realizing this, Fireflies team focuses directly on the benefit. I extracted their main message from the webarchive:

![2019](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJodpyd3a.png)
---

Now let's think about this: **What exactly is an AI tool that can learn from you and do things on the computer for you?** It is definitely teachable AI. More generally, it's an assistant, right? Unfortunately, terms like AI assistant, personal AI, AI agent are already becoming very generic and meaningless. 

If we avoid them and focus on the benefit, what exactly does someone who will use Jan do? They can **increase their productivity**, **improve their workflow**, **make their everyday tasks much easier**, **delegate the tasks they need to do to Jan**... Which of these will make Jan the most "sticky"?

## Main message

I think almost all tools increase productivity and we can skip them because increasing productivity or supercharging productivity is a phrase that everyone uses. We need to find the better and viral way to define the Jan's benefits.

### Delegation?

What about delegation? You can teach Jan something and also it can do something for you... So you can delegate things to Jan. 

Jan allows people to do things easily and focus on creative things. And it does this with delegation. 

So... 

What if we say delegate your tasks to Jan? What if we add the "Teachable AI" we want to create behind it and give the main idea? 

In other words, Jan is a teachable AI that does things for you (from summary, translation, and ideation to being able to use apps for you). So people can delegate a lot of things to Jan, from translation to writing something in a Word file.

According to this mindset, the main message could be:

![2019-2](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/B1m1JxOna.png)

Benefit-oriented; touching "customizable", "teachable", "copilot" terms and also has a viral potential to make it stick!

### Comments 

I told my wife about this idea, and then I called my friends and asked them if they would be interested in such a slogan. They all said yes! I asked them what do you think a tool with such a slogan can do? "*A tool that learns from me and does things for me*," they said. Well, that's exactly it Jan, isn't it? 

#### A concern

I should also mention my only concern, in order to evoke different ideas: Can people think Jan as a tool that has a learning mode and when you turn it on, it understands what you do and then does it for you? 

---

## How to make it stick

What about someone who delegates their tasks to the AI? I mean, what is it more likely to do? Before I answer that question, I should mention the story: 

When Steve Jobs joined Apple for the second time, he had big doubts about how the company was perceived by people and he incorporated some concepts to make the brand have a better image. After a series of studies/researches, they decided to use the ad slogan "**think different**". 

They tried to create the perception that Apple users are people who think differently than people who use other devices. They sold the idea that using Apple will make you think differently. They made a commercial like this. Please watch this movie - there is no feature promotion, no Apple product, just the idea:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5sMBhDv4sik" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

## What about Jan's?

Jan allows users to have more time for creative work. So won't these people go beyond the limits, won't they "**Go Beyond**"?

Imagine the Apple ad above but with Jan's title: Usain Bolt, The Beatles, Alan Turing, Elon Musk (if he doesn't go crazy by then...), Michael Phelps' achievements and records are shown on the screen and a voiceover says (Thanks to ChatGPT!):

> Here's to the ones who dare to go beyond.
> The dreamers.
> The innovators.
> The pioneers.
> The ones who refuse to settle for the ordinary.
> 
> They challenge limits.
> They break barriers.
> They defy expectations.
> 
> They're not satisfied with the status quo.
> They're driven by curiosity, fueled by passion.
> 
> You can doubt them, underestimate them, or even dismiss them.
> But one thing is certain: you can't ignore them.
> 
> Because they redefine possibilities.
> They push boundaries.
> They inspire change.
> 
> While some may see them as unconventional,
> We see visionaries.
> 
> Because those who are bold enough to believe they can go beyond,
> Are the ones who make the impossible, possible.

How proud we are!
