“In the Beginning…”

Guinevere was first conceived sometime in the summer of 2022.

It began simply enough: Over the course of numerous discussions with Isaac Shapira- founder of Platonic Systems Limited and co-founder of Guinevere-, I had asserted that nothing about social media is in alignment with human psychology. No one, I argued, acknowledges the danger of this, although the proof is everywhere. We see that depression, anxiety, and suicidality all track social media use, especially in adolescents, and especially in females. This is not a coincidence, to my mind. Correlations are not always merely apparent; sometimes, correlation does imply causation.

And so the question became, “What, exactly, would a digital ecosystem look like if it were in alignment with psychology?” This simple question began a long series of discussions that became more and more technical as time went on. Ultimately, these talks resulted in Guinevere- a digital ecosystem being built around the core principles of identity and authentication, which as it turns out, results in a radically different type of social media. Isaac, to his credit, suffered my non-technical ignorance with grace, and over time, helped me to narrow the scope of the idea, and to crystallize my vision for what Guinevere might one day become.

We broke ground (technically speaking) in winter of 2023-24; we expect to complete our proof of concept by fall of 2024, to have a working prototype by winter 2024-25, and to have a functional go-to-market product by summer of 2025. Our startup strategy is oriented towards two demographics: engineers and university students. Additionally, we will use a launchpad plan, focusing on the upscaling of the system in individual cities- our first being Pittsburgh, PA. Guinevere’s business plan is streamlined, and will include neither revenue via advertising nor the monetization of user data; instead, Guinevere will focus on old fashioned business fundamentals- providing free profiles with à la carte services that users are actually willing to pay for.

No spam. No fake profiles. No monetization of user data. Just a healthy, organic ecosystem full of real human beings having real, human interactions.

~ Joshua van Asakinda