What we learned from listening to our community.
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is David Champion. In 2014, I started Baker Technologies, the leading CRM platform for the cannabis industry. In 2018, I successfully exited Baker and accepted a volunteer position with the campaign team seeking to decriminalize psychoactive mushrooms in Denver.
In just over six months and with a bootstrapped budget, our tiny team managed to make history. Nearly 51% of Denver residents voted to pass the initiative to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms. As the first city in the U.S. to do so, we opened the doors to nearly 100 'Decriminalize' initiatives in municipalities across the country.
Following my involvement as a leader in the Denver decriminalization campaign, I co-founded the psychedelic research nonprofit, Unlimited Sciences with Heather Jackson and Del Jolly. Together, we formed a collaboration with Johns Hopkins University to design a real-world psilocybin study to explore the impacts of psilocybin mushroom use in naturalistic settings, i.e. outside of the research lab.
Over the past few years, I have learned about the challenges facing psychedelic practitioners from around the world. I studied the cobbled-together systems they used and looked at all of the technology on the market that might meet their needs. I couldn’t find anything that would both help them execute daily tasks, while also generating robust insights.
After listening to the community’s needs, my co-founder, Akoni Anthony and I began to design the Maya platform as a solution to the variety of challenges facing psychedelic practitioners. Our platform is now more comprehensive and secure than we could have imagined, thanks to the input of our advisors and guides. We are thrilled to be able to share it with you.