Rebuild with precision & purpose
At Zero Point, we help tear down the physical and emotional barriers and biases that can obscure people from seeing what’s possible.
We develop true partnerships with our clients that allow for real-world growth and sustained market success.
Jake Sherman
President & Founder
Jake is a seasoned innovation and strategy expert with over a decade of hands-on experience helping companies turn potential energy into real-world momentum. As the founder of Zero Point Strategy, he empowers businesses and brands to break through inertia and unlock transformational growth leveraging empathetic market research, strategic vision, and creative problem-solving.
He has worked with clients of all shapes and sizes - from Fortune 500 companies to early-stage ventures. His experience spans consumer products and services, healthcare and pharma, industrial manufacturing, B2B services, non-profits, and more. Jake is a born researcher, with a strong background in qualitative, quantitative, and secondary market studies, and well-versed in understanding and applying cutting-edge technologies.
A twice-published author, Jake co-authored the award-winning book, Risk-Free Innovation: 10 Ways to Manage Uncertainty (2023) and Rising Together: The Story of Chicago’s Innovation Ecosystem (2020).
He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and received an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Published Books
Risk-Free Innovation: 10 Ways to Manage Uncertainty
BookEnds Publishing (2023)
Risk is all around us. All organizations deal with risk on a daily basis. They deliver services that fall short. They create marketing initiatives that fail to resonate with customers. Their everyday actions are littered with risks, yet they continue to operate. Why should the risks related to innovation be treated differently?
Risk-Free Innovation dismantles the fear of risk-taking in innovation by providing a framework to help companies confidently manage uncertainty. Co-authors Jake Sherman and Tom Kuczmarski blend their combined expertise with virtual content to deliver their ten innovation risk reducers in a dynamic, insight-rich combination of text and augmented reality.
The authors have gathered the best kept secrets from 40 years of innovation experience and streamlined the information into a simple, ten step formula for readers to utilize to their advantage.
“What a great approach to the topic of risk - organized, direct, and process-oriented. You’re taking a lot of the risk out of dealing with risk!”
- Terry Savage, Nationally Syndicated Finance Expert
Rising together: the story of Chicago’s innovation ecosystem
BookEnds Publishing (2020)
What is an innovation ecosystem? It is a blueprint for the city of the future. An environment that not only supports innovation, but makes it inevitable. Over the last twenty years, Chicago has seen a revolutionary change in business culture and success, largely in part to the formation of an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship. The city has become a top-ten global innovation hub, and leads the country in diversity of industry and foreign direct investment.
Rising Together shares the story of the people, organizations, and culture that led to this regional growth, as told through the lens of those who lived it. Combining insights from over thirty industry leaders and founders playing outsized roles in its development, the authors weave together a narrative of the formation, growth, and potential future of the Chicago innovation ecosystem.
“Rising Together artfully demonstrates how Chicago came to offer consistent national leadership in new ideas proving that this city s inclusive, collegial approach to innovation is here to stay.”
- J.B. Pritzker, Governor of Illinois