About Jellyfish
The equation to a good time.
Going out is the last thing software hasn't actually fixed. We're fixing it. Built in San Diego. Built for everywhere worth a Saturday night.
Going out is the last thing software hasn't actually fixed. We're fixing it. Built in San Diego. Built for everywhere worth a Saturday night.
Same bar. Same friends. Same drinks. So why was that one night so much better than the rest?
2017. Junior year at Penn State — head-down in quantitative econ during the day, at a bar called Champs most nights.
One Tuesday, the night just flipped. Same bar, same friends, same drinks — and somehow it turned into one of those nights. The kind people still tell stories about a decade later.
That stuck. Same place, same people. So why was that one so much better than the rest? It wasn't luck. Something in the room was different — crowd, energy, timing, who walked in, who didn't. An alignment, not a coincidence. Most people would call that vibe and move on. I figured it was probably measurable.
A couple weeks later I was sketching it out, and the mathematical aha hit me: everyone wanting to be in the same place at the same time, given all of their preferences and options. In short, given everyone's options, we wouldn't all have been in another place with anyone else. We all shared that vibe together — and that vibe is known as a good time. I called it The Equation to a Good Time.
That part was math. The hard part was building a product around it — and from day one, that's been a team thing. The first attempt was a group of 9-10 of us at Penn State: friends, classmates, people who'd actually been in those nights and wanted to figure out why. Every Jellyfish attempt since has been the same shape — a tight crew of people who believed in it, doing the work together.
Nine years, three other companies along the way, and one question that wouldn't quit — until it was finally time to build it for real.
It's 2026. The product is here — an app that doesn't make you guess where the night is. So by definition, Jellyfish ideally puts everyone in the right place, given all of their preferences and options, allowing for more good times more often. We here at Jellyfish believe we have truly solved the equation to a good time.
The best night out is the one you didn't plan. We built Jellyfish for the five minutes between deciding to go out and actually being out.
Pick any Friday in San Diego. Hundreds of venues open. Maybe a dozen are actually good for you tonight. Crowd, music, vibe, who's working, what's happening across the street — none of that information is available before you walk in.
Yelp shows 2019. Google shows averages from 18 months ago. Instagram shows highlight reels. Your group chat takes 47 messages to land on a closed bar.
That's the system. We thought it could be better.
Nightlife is the most real-time thing a city does. The app for it shouldn't feel like a review site — it should feel like a weather radar. Live. Ambient. Glanceable. Built for the moment, not the research session.
Jellyfish fuses three live signals into one map: anonymized presence from people inside venues, pulse reports they tap on the way out, and forecasts that learn your taste. Result: a per-venue color you can read in a half-second. Plus a crew layer, because going out is rarely a solo sport.
That's the equation to a good time.
The US social and nightlife industry is a $25 billion market with ~67,000 venues. The target demographic — 21 to 35 — is a quarter of every major city. Trendsetters. Spenders. The people who actually go out.
Right now they're stuck choosing between Yelp from 2019, Google averages from last spring, or a group chat. The category is wide open.
San Diego is where we live, where we go out, and where the signal is densest. PB, Gaslamp, North Park, Hillcrest, La Jolla, Little Italy, Ocean Beach, Coronado, Encinitas, Carlsbad — all 19 neighborhoods get the same live treatment. Get one city right. Then the next.
Up next: Orange County. Then LA. Then NY, Miami, Vegas, Austin, Nashville. Then the rest. If you live in one of those — there's a signup form a click away.
Penn State. Same bar, same friends — and a night that hit different. James starts asking why. The Equation to a Good Time goes from bar napkin to a real framework his professors sign off on. The first build team comes together: 9-10 friends and classmates who'd been in those nights and wanted to figure out why.
Three other companies started and run in parallel. Small teams form around every Jellyfish attempt — friends, classmates, collaborators — building, breaking, and rebuilding what would become this product. Lots of versions. None of them ready yet, but every attempt the same shape: never a one-person show.
A San Diego venue map with hand-curated occupancy. Friends start asking for the link. The product finally has a shape that makes sense in five seconds.
Geofence presence ships. User-submitted pulse reports ship. The map stops being static and starts feeling like the city. Crew layer + Tonight's Plan land later in the year.
A growing waitlist of early users. Pro tier in private beta. Scaling carefully so the signal stays clean. The equation, finally shipping.
If we can't tell you what's happening tonight, we won't pretend we can. No fake activity, no inflated numbers.
Presence is anonymized. We never expose individual locations to other users. Crew sharing is opt-in per friend.
Pro adds power-user features. Free gives you the map, the dots, and your crew. Anything else would be sleazy.
One city right, then the next. We'd rather be the best in San Diego than the third-best in twelve markets.
A 4.5-star venue with no one in it is dead. A 4.0 with a packed patio is the move. Our product reflects that.
You should spend less time in the app, not more. Glance, decide, get on with the night.
Operators, athletes, builders, and a working DJ. We answer our own emails.
Penn State economics & quantitative data with a minor in marketing. Lifelong athlete — basketball player at Penn State — with the competitive instinct that comes with it. Former commercial real estate brokerage financial analyst. Currently an AI business analyst at Booz Allen Hamilton by day. Successfully started three companies before this one. He developed the original "Equation to a Good Time" framework in college and has been working on Jellyfish for nearly a decade — the project he calls his baby, finally built around the framework.
Chelsey runs admin and operations across Jellyfish — the day-to-day machinery that keeps the whole thing moving. If it has to actually get done, it runs through her. She's the lifeblood of how we operate.
Shaan advises the team on growth and development — helping shape how Jellyfish scales from San Diego outward.
Drop your email — we'll get you on the early access list, and tell you the moment we open your city.