Dear Pioneers and friends of sofi,
I have been silent for some time from our community here as been thinking about the business of sofi. I wanted to share with you some initial thoughts. Not fully formed, but like all things we do, in its prototype form so that we can shape it for the better together.
sofi, and our mission of reconnecting people and plants, should be accessible to all.
When I think of “all”, I mean that in the very broadest sense – sofi should play its humble part in improving the human condition, one person at a time, wherever she can.
In my thinking on the business of sofi, three groups come to mind.
Folks who are fortunate to pay a fair price for our product when it is available for sale. We are working with the product team to optimise every component to make the sofi stick, app, learning algorithms, and formulation as cost-effective as possible.
sofi should also be accessible to folks who need it but are not in a position to pay a fair price. For this group, we are working to create an opportunity for sponsored stick, formulation, and learning algorithms through sofi partners.
And then, there is a final group. Perhaps the most numerous. Those who can neither afford a fair price for sofi nor a smartphone to act as a bridge. Nor much in the way of current medicine. These are parts of the human family living in sometimes tricky situations and geographies that would benefit from reconnecting with medicinal plants.
It may seem grandiose for us at this early stage to imagine how we may connect with anything other than a paying customer. But we have never shied away from the possibility of dreaming at sofi. And this is the dream I wanted to share with you - on the business of our sofi.
The first group – sofi “customers” – should expect to find an affordable starter kit and an acceptable and accessible recurring monthly subscription for the plant formulations. We are building a beautiful, smart stick made from premium materials to 0.1mm machine precision (we can’t wait to trial this build in our S3 Ashwagandha program, currently under tooling and production as we speak). Each sofi smart stick will be manufactured from materials to last well beyond a warranty period, free of designed obsolescence.
The second group – sofi “Pioneers” – just as in our current Pioneer Programs, should have access without charge. There will naturally be limited seats for active Pioneers, and we will look at alternate models to fund the cost of the Pioneer Programs. Our current thinking is to generate a database called “atlas” in which we anonymise all data generated through the Pioneer Programs and allow sofi partners who pay for access to this anonymised data for research and development to fund the cost of the sofi smart sticks and formulations used by our Pioneers. We are implementing total requirements in anonymisation. For example, as a Pioneer, I should not be able to recognise my data once anonymised and the key destroyed (so anonymisation could not be reversed). We are also working with our tech team to ensure that the servers hosting atlas, even if breached, do not contain any personally identifiable data. To provide further oversight, we shall set up a Pioneer Advisory group of active Pioneers. They will oversee the level of anonymisation in “atlas” and offer independent guardianship over our sofi. We will be able to provide access to thousands of folks who would benefit from sofi but perhaps are not in a position to pay a fair price for the product. The further knowledge that Pioneer journeys provide will help improve products in human health and our understanding and research into plants, of course, will be a tremendous legacy for atlas.
Finally, there is the third group. This group will take the longest for sofi to be able to impact, but we are drawing up plans under “sofi one_”, and our mission is to enable the first such “campus” by 2028 (we do have some long-term goals here as well)! These campuses will further our mission of “reconnecting people and plants” under challenging parts of the world where pharmaceutical products are limited in their reach and poverty rife. For us to carry this mission out, we must also collaborate with global botanical centres that are leading centres of excellence in biodiversity and conservation worldwide. We have been engaged in these conversations for over a year now about how we can combine sustainable agronomy of native medicinal plants and educate locals on how to grow sustainably and use naturally occurring bioactive compounds to improve human health. We are working on dedicating a portion of our revenue proceeds to setting up permanent education and research campuses with our botanical research partners.
Our mission with sofi is to enable individuals to identify a uniquely beneficent relationship with plant-based medicines and remedies to mitigate long-term suffering and improve quality of life. By working in partnership with leading botanical centres worldwide, we plan to investigate and research the science of plants and their potential to impact the human condition. As part of the “sofi one_” program will plan to provide this knowledge in the development of optimal plant-based remedies, and the sustainable process of cultivating these plants, in emerging societies where access to methods of alleviating chronic suffering remains strained at best.
We believe that sofi can be a fair, accessible, profitable business with real human impact, where customers, Pioneers and the broader Family can benefit from our mission to reconnect people and plants. It may sound ambitious, perhaps zealous, but what is certain is that we have a dream. And we are grateful for having you with us on this journey. We will release more on this in the coming weeks, months (and years).
Wishing you a wonderful, restful weekend.
best wishes x
