I was supposed to do something last week. If I’m lucky, I’ll remember what it was. If I’m really lucky, I’ll remember the context around it. But counting on luck isn’t a strategy, and organizing all the information in our work lives is incredibly challenging. Sure, there are task managers, but that’s not where I keep my notes. Sure, there are note takers, but that’s not where I keep my tasks. And none of the current set of tools allow me to collaborate with my colleagues the way I want.
On an individual level, what I really want is an intelligent assistant that surfaces the information I need, where and when I need it (like J.A.R.V.I.S. from Iron Man). On a team level, I want Collective intelligence, the ability to create a mind meld with my colleagues so they can use the information I have, and vice versa. I want to easily add information to a central location, have it be editable, searchable, and for that to happen blazingly fast. Most importantly, I want to be able to surface search results across all of the applications I use, with information at my fingertips.
As it happens, there’s a small team working on building exactly this type of knowledge graph, and it’s called Mem.ai. This 2 minute video describes this new productivity concept.
Mem’s mission is to shatter silos by connecting the world’s information, starting with the information that individuals capture. Moving past the convenient but insufficient world of files and folders, Mem has built an associative knowledge graph that powers your life and your team. Mem uses powerful developer primitives, such as keyboard shortcuts and command lines, so that users can easily write notes as fast as they can type, seamlessly integrate and link them, and search and recall knowledge in Mem, from any application. This is a holy grail of information storage and retrieval. But Mem isn’t just a knowledge graph — it’s also an action graph that applies workflow and automation on top of the information you capture. One that allows you to not just know, but also do. It’s an incredibly powerful paradigm.
We made a seed investment in Mem last year, and they’ve announced it today on TechCrunch. The two founders, Kevin Moody (Stanford CS 2017 and former Google product manager) & Dennis Xu (Stanford CS 2017 and former Yelp product manager) are not only technical, but also deep-thinking product people through and through. When we first met them, beyond their product and technical chops, we were also impressed by their ability to articulate a long-term vision, build a working version of Mem quickly, and then connect the dots of how this vision could come together over time. Pace of execution is one of the most important ingredients for success in a startup, and Mem has it in spades.
We’re thrilled to partner with Kevin and Dennis on their journey to build an iconic software company. Mem is just getting started, is hiring, and is bringing people off the waitlist as quickly as possible.
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