INTJ Fund: Product Market Fit
A Long-term Collaborative Strategy featuring INTJ and ENTJ Women
Every startup is small at the start. Every monopoly dominates a large share of its market. Therefore, every startup should start with a very small market. Always err on the side of starting too small. The reason is simple: it’s easier to dominate a small market than a large one. If you think your initial market might be too big, it almost certainly is. - Zero to One, Peter Thiel
The INTJ Fund is focused on supporting INTJ and ENTJ women. INTJ women are the North Star. The INTJ Fund is an infinite game.
THERE ARE at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. - James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
The INTJ Fund is an infinite game focused on supporting the growth and mental health of INTJ and ENTJ women (or xNTJ women as a shorthand). Why focus on these two market segments?
The most interesting numbers are zero and one. I have churn rate of zero with INTJ women friends. I have retained every single INTJ woman friend I have ever made. This is an anomaly that is true for INTJ women and no one else. It implies compounding social returns for every additional individual I can add of someone from this market segment.
ENTJ women friends also represent a cohort where I have a positive growth rate. Unlike with the INTJ women, there is a small churn rate for this cohort. How do I have a positive growth rate if there is churn? ENTJ women give the highest amount of relevant referrals to other compatible people of any cohort. Relevant referrals being defined as referrals to people that also have a high retention and low expected churn rate.
xNTJ women (shorthand for INTJ + ENTJ women) represent the only people where I have a relationship growth rate is equal or greater than one. This makes it possible to build a long-term, collaborative social strategy around them.
Given that these people lead to exponential happiness growth to me, I started thinking about how I could accumulate more of these people as friends. I decided on an organization to support xNTJ women career goals and mental health. I’m focused on people in software because that it is where my relationships are the strongest.
My favorite things to talk about are business strategy and psychology. INTJ Fund allows me to talk about my two favorite topics with people whom I have the highest retention and referral rates.
The context of the organization allows me to leverage natural advantages. The high retention rates and referrals implies that I have an inherent advantage over other people.
The focus on INTJ and and ENTJ women will allow me to create environments that don’t exist. This will create further value for community members. The goal is to create a community with social norms that are optimized for xNTJ women.
What is the INTJ Fund?
INTJ Fund is a collaborative, long-term, multi-turn strategy with exponential growth as a goal. Two defined targeted categories for exponential growth are career growth and mental health.
INTJ Fund is a high retention strategy with compounding social value at the core of the strategy. It is a place where business strategy and psychology are the primary two topics of conversation. It is not for everyone.
INTJ Fund’s objectives are simple.
Identify INTJ and ENTJ women that can collaborate with each other with minimal conflict. Accumulate the most mindful, ambitious, intelligent xNTJ women interested in starting new ventures or investing in new ventures. Form a community that is optimized for their needs and preferences.
To agree on internal limitations is to establish rules of play.
In the narrowest sense rules are not laws; they do not mandate specific behavior, but only restrain the freedom of the players, allowing considerable room for choice within those restraints. - James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
The social norms of the INTJ Fund are effectively the rules of play of the INTJ Fund. You don’t have to be an INTJ or ENTJ women but you do need to adhere to the rules of play. These are the rules of play for of the community:
Your presence leads xNTJ women to talk more about business strategy or applied psychology as a percentage of the total volume of aggregate speaking in the group
Capable of executing long-term, collaborative strategies that lead to exponential happiness growth in the categories of career and mental health
Active Listener - You listen actively and pay attention who isn’t speaking and give them an opportunity to speak
Direct communicator
Doesn’t tone police or act in any manner that could be viewed as emotional control or manipulation
Capable of exchanging ideas without trying to convince the other person
You can agree to disagree and move on
Do not repeat yourself often or make others repeat themselves
Is the INTJ and ENTJ women focus too narrow?
Paradoxically, then, network effects businesses must start with especially small markets. Paradoxically, then, network effects businesses must start with especially small markets. Facebook started with just Harvard students—Mark Zuckerberg’s first product was designed to get all his classmates signed up, not to attract all people of Earth. This is why successful network businesses rarely get started by MBA types: the initial markets are so small that they often don’t even appear to be business opportunities at all.
- Zero to One Peter Thiel
xNTJ women make up about 1% of the population. Why not go broader?
No competitive advantages. My retention rate with xNTJ women friends implies a natural advantage. Expanding the audience means competing in areas where there are no inherent advantages. I have no interest in competing. As Peter Thiel says, “competition is for losers.”
Strengthening existing advantages. Creating an environment that is optimized for a small cohort allows me to research and study my audience at a hyper focused level that will allow INTJ Fund to deliver superior customer service to its core audience.
Creating networking opportunities at scale through meetings of three people is something that is so unscalable that any competition will not do it.
Facilitating conversations between two people
knows both parties to a degree where as a facilitator - INTJ Fund team members can reduce or eliminate potential miscommunications and sources of conflict.
If you are INTJ or ENTJ women in technology, please email me so I know who you are at kenneth@intj.fund anytime with a little information about yourself. I’m happy to have a conversation for the reasons stated above. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn here - just write your MBTI type in the connection message to me.