Dispatch 2
Company Update #2 - Our Work with the NCAA
Jeff Nyquist
A few months ago, I stepped outside to take a call. We had friends over for dinner. The house was loud. Kids, dogs, someone’s playlist competing with a conversation; no one was winning.
It was our excellent partner, Dr. Elizabeth Taylor from Temple University. The NCAA had informed her that they wanted to partner on the development of our project.
I said something like “that’s amazing” and went back inside and tried to contain my excitement for the rest of the night. I don’t think I succeeded. If I’m honest, the excitement included some anxiety. We were still so early, still building a beta app. Were we actually ready to meet the expectations of the NCAA?
The person behind the research
I need to tell you about Liz. Dr. Elizabeth Taylor is our research lead. She’s a professor at Temple University and an expert on student-athlete well-being and culture for athletic orgs. She has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles in this area. But she knows the field from lived experience too.
Liz ran track and played volleyball at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Division III. Two sports. She went on to coach. So when she talks about student-athlete wellness and the gaps in how we support these kids, she’s not theorizing. She lived it. She coached it.
When we partnered with her almost 3 years ago, we were focused on her expertise in student-athlete wellness and athletic department culture. What we didn’t expect was that she’d become the person universities invite to present, sometimes covering her travel just to hear about this work. Afterward, athletic staff line up with questions.
What the NCAA saw
Here’s an honest detail we don’t usually lead with. During our first pilot, some athletes found Sam unsettling. It prompted deeper conversations than they expected. One athlete said “I don’t like talking about this stuff.”
In hindsight, the group setting wasn’t ideal. We were asking people to be vulnerable in a room full of their peers. We learned. We adjusted. Now the majority of conversations with Sam happen alone, in a dorm or apartment, on their phone, often after dinner. That shift happened because we listened to the athletes instead of assuming we knew how they’d use it.
We also learned what student-athletes valued about talking with Sam. Sam doesn’t have office hours. They don’t report to your coach. They give you the space to just be real.
The results from that first pilot were hard to ignore. 71% of participants improved their help-seeking behavior. 93% reported increased clarity and self-awareness. Career confusion dropped from 40% to 4%.
Those numbers are what turned a research project into a partnership with the NCAA.
How a research project became a national partnership
That grant led to a deeper relationship with the NCAA, which is a signed distribution agreement to help us deploy Sam across all 1,100 NCAA member universities starting January 2027. Access to more than 500,000 student-athletes.
Not a pilot. Not a letter of intent. A signed agreement.
Two years ago, Robin and I were testing Sam with 25 athletes at Temple. The product was built for career transitions. Help athletes figure out what comes after sports.
But something happened during that pilot that we didn’t plan for.
Athletes started talking to Sam about everything. Anxiety before exams. Conflicts with coaches. Family stuff. Loneliness. One athlete told us “gossip is real” when explaining why she couldn’t say these things to teammates. They weren’t using Sam the way we designed it. They were using it the way they needed it.
The research participants taught us what Sam should become. Not a career tool. A mentor for the whole person.
That evolution is what the NCAA responded to.
And it’s what could become a better way to help this next generation starting in January 2027.
We’re in Phase I now. A multi-site study across nine universities, 100 athletes, all three NCAA divisions. Liz is leading it. The pilot numbers got us here. The current study determines whether those results hold at scale. I won’t pretend that doesn’t keep me up at night.
But Liz got these nine universities on board. She knows the people inside athletic departments as well as anyone. She believed in this work before we had a product, before we had data, before anyone had said yes. If she’s not nervous, I probably shouldn’t be either.
If this resonates
If you want to talk with Sam yourself, we can send you a link to the beta app.
We’re raising a seed round to accelerate development ahead of our NCAA-supported national deployment in January 2027. We need to build the team and the product to meet that moment well.
If you’re someone who understands what’s at stake for this generation of young people, I’d welcome a conversation.
And even if investing isn’t your lane, introductions have changed our trajectory before. If you know someone who should hear about Journai, please send them our way.
Thank you for being in this with us.
Jeff & Robin