Armenian Entrepreneur Builds the Product of All Experiences

"The Armenian Weekly", Volume 72, No. 35, September 2, 2006

“I was the pedestrian in a car-pedestrian tussle. I did a bunch of damage to the car…but, all in all, I have to say that the car got the better of me.”

So starts one dramatic personal story on a new Web site called The Experience Project . Founded by Armen Berjikly, a 26-year-old Armenian entrepreneur from San Francisco, The Experience Project is billed as “the discreet reality community where you’re free to be yourself.” The primary concept of the site centers on community members sharing personal stories and wisdom about the experiences they find important in their lives. Alongside remembrances of accidents, the experiences on the site run the gamut from the serious, such as coping with the death of one’s father or dealing with racism, to the light-hearted, such as memories of a first kiss or drinking too much.

With the soaring popularity of online personal journals (blogs) and social networking sites such as Myspace, people are now very comfortable with the idea of sharing personal information online. However, these sites can easily become too public, with your identifying information, including your name, picture, friend’s names, and so on, being stored in publicly accessible databases indefinitely. This may be fine when recollecting the trivialities of daily life, but for more provocative issues, privacy concerns become paramount. “But it is exactly these sensitive experiences that shape us into who we are, and are therefore the most critical ones to discuss freely,” notes Berjikly. “You’re probably not going to talk about your battle with depression next to a picture of your smiling face, but talking about it will help bring about healing, not only by simply expressing your thoughts in print, but also by connecting you with others who understand exactly what you’re going through since they’ve been through it themselves.”

After growing up in Los Angeles, Berjikly attended Stanford University, where he majored in computer science and management science. Though he found his first job out of college as a product manager in a San Jose technology firm “truly rewarding,” he used his spare time to chase his personal goals. “”My passion is to use technology, and the Internet in particular, to unite people who would benefit from knowing each other.” With that in mind, he began creating not-for-profit Internet health communities, where patients with serious illnesses were able to virtually gather and discuss their treatment strategies and research. “It sponsored both hope and a sense of belonging for people that, prior to the availability of the Internet, would have been entirely isolated from society.”

The success of these sites led Berjikly to a realization: each of these communities were based on a single common experience—for example, having multiple sclerosis.

“Every person faces adversity in their lives, and no person is defined by any one experience. And the first thing we as humans want to do when challenged is to talk to someone else that has been there before.” The result was the Experience Project, a site designed for users to share detailed personal experiences across the spectrum of things they find meaningful, and likewise to take advantage of collective wisdom for experiences they haven’t had yet. In the process, they are able to connect with other people who have had experiences similar to them—connections based on, “who you are, not who you know” notes Berjikly. The site, which is free to use, does not allow members to reveal their real names or display personal photographs, in an effort to encourage openness by removing the fear of potential recognition.

“Essentially, Experience Project is a comfortable place where you can be yourself without being recognized, and participate in a community that will understand, help and support you through their collective wisdom, knowing that you will do the same for them in your areas of life expertise,” says Berjikly.

“Imagine the hundreds of people that you walk past each day and never speak to—what if just one of those people could be the most interesting person you ever met, if only you knew which one to talk to and what questions to ask. I believe our technology can make this possible, and the benefits for our users are immense.”

The Experience Project can be found at http://www.experienceproject.com Armen Berjikly can be reached at armenb@experienceproject.com.