H
Haje Jan Kamps
Guest
“We’re not making fucking glamping tents for bros at Coachella,” Jeff Wilson, co-founder and CEO at Jupe is eager to reassure me, as he outlines his vision for the company. “At this point, food is a distribution problem, clothing is largely solved. There are about 1.5 billion people in the world that still don’t have adequate shelter. If you’re going to work on big problems here on earth, that’s one worth working on.”
It seems like Garry Tan from Initialized and the gang over at Y Combinator agree — they just secured a roof over Jupe’s head for a few months with a 7 million of revenue booked.
The company wasn’t eager to share its pricing model with us, and Wilson argues that it isn’t relevant anyway; the company is hoping to build out a network of Jupes and place them on plots of lands. They then rent it out, and split the revenue 50/50.
“You have no upfront cost, apart from a small licensing fee. We put it on our booking platform, and we hot-swap them out. If the Jupe on your land gets old, we come and replace it, almost like a car trade-in. We bring in the newest technology for you, and take the old one for another use case,” explains Wilson. “Just add land, that’s our slogan.”
The company’s biggest challenge right now is to attract the right CTO who can take charge of the technical side of things — the company is looking for a technical, “almost founder level CTO” to help build the future of the technology platform.
“They just have to be a good fucking human. There are so many assholes out there, and we need someone truly excellent. We’re probably looking for someone with 15 years experience, who has had exposure both to startups, and managed and grown big teams. Someone who is really strong in the software side, but who has also done a bunch of integration stuff. This is a gadget; a device,” explains Wilson, “It’s going to be a hard find, but we’re going to spend a significant amount of money and equity on this person to get someone who is competitive, and who can help us get to the vision I have.”
It’s a bold vision — the company wants to house a hundred million people.
“I know everyone wants to go to Mars, but let’s not give up on Earth quite yet,” Wilson concludes. “Screw the valuation of the company, this is what I want to do with the rest of my life. I need the best folks in the world who are also good humans. Let’s work on this cause.”
It seems like Garry Tan from Initialized and the gang over at Y Combinator agree — they just secured a roof over Jupe’s head for a few months with a
The company wasn’t eager to share its pricing model with us, and Wilson argues that it isn’t relevant anyway; the company is hoping to build out a network of Jupes and place them on plots of lands. They then rent it out, and split the revenue 50/50.
“You have no upfront cost, apart from a small licensing fee. We put it on our booking platform, and we hot-swap them out. If the Jupe on your land gets old, we come and replace it, almost like a car trade-in. We bring in the newest technology for you, and take the old one for another use case,” explains Wilson. “Just add land, that’s our slogan.”
The company’s biggest challenge right now is to attract the right CTO who can take charge of the technical side of things — the company is looking for a technical, “almost founder level CTO” to help build the future of the technology platform.
“They just have to be a good fucking human. There are so many assholes out there, and we need someone truly excellent. We’re probably looking for someone with 15 years experience, who has had exposure both to startups, and managed and grown big teams. Someone who is really strong in the software side, but who has also done a bunch of integration stuff. This is a gadget; a device,” explains Wilson, “It’s going to be a hard find, but we’re going to spend a significant amount of money and equity on this person to get someone who is competitive, and who can help us get to the vision I have.”
It’s a bold vision — the company wants to house a hundred million people.
“I know everyone wants to go to Mars, but let’s not give up on Earth quite yet,” Wilson concludes. “Screw the valuation of the company, this is what I want to do with the rest of my life. I need the best folks in the world who are also good humans. Let’s work on this cause.”