Mobile app
Team-up: Connecting Student Entrepreneurs with Same Minds
Why this project?
Universities serve as excellent hubs for students to connect with like-minded peers, providing a fertile ground for innovation and entrepreneurial endeavors. While universities are ideal environments for nurturing student entrepreneurs, a significant barrier exists: the lack of effective means for students to find potential collaborators or partners. The app is designed to build a trustful and professional online platform that could provide student entrepreneurs with access to a network of like-minded peers.
Identify the pain points!
To better understand the problem, a school-wise survey was conducted to better understand the situation at NYU. I managed to collect 15 responses from 14 students of 8 different schools including Steinhardt, Stern, Tisch, Tandon, School of Professional Studies (SPS), School of Law, College of Arts and Science (CAS) Silver Schools of Social Work at New York University (NYU), and 1 responder from Lanonge which affiliated with NYU.
From the responses, a big portion state that “they have difficulty connecting to peers who might have the same interests to initiate start-up projects” and “they want to join start-up teams but lack connections”. Despite several solutions provided by NYU, there are still doubts about their effectiveness in solving the problem. Therefore, students of interest still lack the ways to have effective networking, and this leads to my following HMW questions:
How to provide university students with effective access to a community of entrepreneurial minds?
How to support students to effectively team up to spark their start-up ideas?
Comparative Analysis
University Solutions:
To encourage students in entrepreneurship, many universities have established relevant infrastructure. Data shows that, by 2018, 42% of universities had associated incubator programs, up from about one-third in 2012 and one-fifth in 2006 (Januta, 2018). However, most incubators focus on coaching business ideas, building business skills, and providing funding opportunities, with little attention given to helping students connect with potential team members or collaborators.
I.New York University:
NYU Entrepreneurship Slack Channel
In Slack channel, there is a specifically-created sub-channel— “team-finder”, where students can share information and ask for potential collaborations. This channel serves as a basic platform for students to share the information and get connected. However, there are several concerns about the effectiveness of it.
Functionality is not compatible with these students’ needs. For example, If students want to check which start-up teams are recruiting members, they have to scroll up to browse through every message sent in the channel because there is no filter to help them sort out information.
Nowhere for students to know if some recruitment or collaborations are still open unless they reach out and wait for the reply.
There is also little information or background about the members except the title of NYU students if members do not reveal in their messages.
Team Hunt Event
Team Hunt event is an in-person event hosted by NYU entrepreneurship, aiming to help students connect and find potential partners and teams. Usually the event is hosted 2 times per semester. Despite the offline form, which excludes tons of students, the structure of the event might also post problems. Since it is a free networking event, it might be hard for students to find someone who happen to have the same interests and the people who go to this event tend to be whoever already have a small team seeking for networking, which does not do help to students who try to find collaborators or peers to brainstorm and develop early ideas. Another problem is that it is not a high-frequency event where you can always turn to get to know people.
II.Other Schools
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Orbit Website
MIT has a platform designed primarily for students to find internships and job opportunities, but it also supports student entrepreneurs in connecting with potential co-founders or startup teams. When students select options like “Looking for a Co-founder” or “Interested in Joining a Team,” the website displays relevant opportunities, allowing students to explore details and make connections.
However, these functions are far from achieving the goals of student entrepreneurs. First, since the website is primarily focused on job and internship opportunities, students on the platform are more likely to be searching for employment rather than connecting with other entrepreneurs. This is evident in the fact that there are significantly more posts under “paid internship” and “full-time employment” than under “looking for a co-founder” or “interested in joining a team.” Second, the entrepreneurial posts mostly focus on introducing the projects, as many of these posts are primarily for recruiting team members. Lack of the information about students behind these projects is not beneficial for initiating interactions. Third, the tags on the top are very unclear. They appear to mix field or subject categories with other content, which might confuse students.
University of Chicago Polsky Team-building spreadsheet
The University of Chicago uses Airtable spreadsheets to collect and display information about startup teams looking for members and students interested in joining a team. While this setup can facilitate connections between teams and student entrepreneurs, it may intimidate students who are not yet committed to a specific project but are open to discussions with like-minded peers. Additionally, the extensive information on both team and student profiles is presented in a large table, which could overwhelm students and make it difficult to navigate.
III.APP Designs
Y Combinator(YC): Co-founder Matching
Y Combinator (YC) is one of the most renowned startup accelerators, and one of the services it offers is helping entrepreneurs find potential co-founders. As part of the process, YC requires users (entrepreneurs) to complete detailed profiles, which include personal information and co-founder preferences. After the profiles are submitted and reviewed by YC staff, the system will introduce profiles based on the key filters generated from their information.
This setup creates a systematic way to help users find their match, but there are a few aspects that could potentially discourage users from engaging fully with the platform.
Profile Completion Pressure: Users are required to fill out a significant amount of information for their profiles. While some questions—such as "What are your expectations for splitting equity?" or "How did your life path lead to where you are now?"—are optional, they may still create a sense of pressure. For many users, especially those who are new to entrepreneurship, these questions can feel daunting, which could lead to hesitation in completing the profile.
Inability to View Other Profiles Without Approval: Another barrier is that users cannot access other profiles or start making connections until they have completed all the required information and have had their profiles reviewed by YC staff. This step can slow down the process and might frustrate users who are eager to find potential co-founders quickly.
Coffee Space
Coffeespace is a co-founder matching app designed to help entrepreneurs find like-minded individuals to collaborate with. Upon creating an account and logging in, users are directed to the main screen where they can browse through various profiles. The profiles displayed in Coffeespace are fairly comprehensive and typically include details about users' work and educational backgrounds, their current entrepreneurial status, and skill sets. This gives users a well-rounded view of potential co-founders, helping them make more informed decisions about who might be a good match.
One of the key features of the app is the swipe functionality—users swipe left if they're not interested in the profile, or right if they want to start a conversation with the potential co-founder. But users can only swipe right and initiate conversations if their own profiles are complete. This is a smart design choice from my point of view because it ensures that both users have taken the time to fill out their profiles, maintaining a level of professionalism for the platform and increasing the likelihood of meaningful, quality interactions. However, instead of presenting key information on the profile, the profile shown to the users includes all the information including basic background, entrepreneurial status, work/educational experience, hobby, social media link and anything the person wants to share, which can be inevitably overwhelming to users and slow down their decision making process. Furthermore, when users swipe right for a profile, representing they are interested and want to be connected, they cannot send anything but to wait in the dark for the person to accept the invite, causing frustration and impatience for the users.
Design walkthrough
Log-in:
When users log-in, they are prompted to answer four pre-questions to help the system filter and suggest suitable matches later on. These questions are:
What is your goal?
This question aims to clarify users' objectives—whether they want to join startup teams or have startup ideas and need team members.What industries are you interested in?
This question helps users identify peers with similar interests, laying the groundwork for future collaboration.Do you prefer to connect with fellow students and alumni from your schools?
This question assesses users' preferences regarding educational background when searching for team members.Which area(s) would you like your team members to take responsibility for?
This question assists users in finding peers with complementary skill sets, ensuring a better fit for collaboration.
Connect feature:
After completing the pre-questions, users will be directed to the “Connect” screen. Here, profiles are displayed based on their responses to the pre-questions. Filters are available at the top, allowing users to refresh and refine the displayed profiles.
Each profile card includes essential information such as the user’s name, occupation, interests, school affiliation, and desired responsibilities. If users find a specific profile that interests them, they can click on the card to access more detailed information about the person, facilitating deeper connections and potential collaborations.
Event Feature:
The Events section features upcoming events scheduled for the week, displayed in a horizontally scrollable format. Events that have already passed will appear in grey, indicating they are no longer clickable for registration.
The events listed below can be registered for, shared, and saved, catering to users' diverse needs. Clicking on an event card allows users to view full details about the event. Additionally, a demographic feature is designed to provide insights into potential attendees, such as their school affiliations and goals on the platform. This information helps users gain a better understanding of their peers attending the event, assisting them in making informed decisions about whether or not to participate.
Hub feature:
In the Hub section, posts are displayed vertically under the four themes. Users can click on the post cards to delve deeper into discussions.
At the bottom right, there is a button that allows users to add their own posts, encouraging active participation and sharing of ideas. This layout fosters engagement and collaboration within the community, making it easy for users to both contribute and explore relevant discussions.
Adding user profile:
In the hi-fi prototype, I created a dedicated tab in the navigation bar for users to create their own profiles, rather than placing this function within the “Connect” screen. The rationale behind this change is that the “Connect” screen is primarily designed for users to browse through profiles and find matches, which involves processing a significant amount of information, therefore including the profile creation function in this context felt incompatible and potentially overwhelming.
By providing a separate tab for profile creation, users can focus on crafting their profiles conveniently. This design can also ensure that each section of the app serves a clear and distinct purpose for the users.
Audience & Persona
For the purposes of this research, the specific subset of users I focused on are students at New York University (NYU). As one of the most diverse universities in terms of race and gender, NYU offers a strong representative sample of the students. Additionally, the university provides resources and support for entrepreneurial initiatives, making it an ideal setting for examining the challenges faced by student entrepreneurs.
In summary, the characteristics of my target audience are:
NYU-affiliated students (ages 20–35)
Interest in entrepreneurship, either by starting their own or joining existing teams
Strong desire to connect with a community of like-minded peers for collaboration on projects
Easy access to technology and the internet, with extensive online experiencenting they are interested and want to be connected, they cannot send anything but to wait in the dark for the person to accept the invite, causing frustration and impatience for the users.
Based on these characteristics, I created two personas.
Usability test:
I conducted usability testing with three potential users using the think-aloud approach. During the sessions, participants were asked to speak out their thoughts as they performed the following tasks:
Find a match and reach out to the person.
Join an event that interests them.
Create a profile for themselves.
Delve into a discussion they like.
The test focused on several key research questions:
Are the pre-questions self-explanatory?
Is the information provided on profile cards helpful for users in finding their matches?
How do users register for events?
What are their thoughts on the “check attendees’ demographic information” feature, and do they consider this information when deciding to join an event?
How do users join discussions they are interested in? What themes would they like to participate in?
What are their impressions of the information required to fill out their profiles?
How do they like the design/interactions with the prototype in general?
Usability analysis:
The test managed to yield insightful inputs from the testers and informed iterations of the prototype:
Pre-questions feature
During testing, I noticed that some users were confused when the pre-questions appeared immediately after they completed the school information. One tester even paused and asked what the pre-questions were for. This suggests that the transition from the login process to the pre-questions isn’t clear or intuitive enough. To address this, I’ve added a brief explanation before the questions begin, helping users understand their purpose and improving the flow.
“Check attendee demographic information” feature
In my initial design, demographic information was presented through statements like "60% of participants are from NYU Steinhardt" and "50% of participants are interested in EdTech." However, two testers noted that this wording made them feel excluded, as if they were expected to fit into these categories to attend the event. This feedback highlighted a misunderstanding of my intent, which was to provide users with a general overview of the attendees’ backgrounds. To address this, I revised the format by replacing the text with a pie chart. This visual representation allows users to easily interpret the data without feeling limited or excluded by specific categories
Add my profile feature
Add my profile is the place where users thoughtfully curate their information to attract more connections. However, the current design of the profile creation process may intimidate users for a few reasons. First, it displays all the fields upfront, which can discourage users. Second, there are no instructions or guidance on the page to help users navigate their answers. I changed the design to make different sections expandable to resolve the first issue.
Below shows some key features of Team-up. If you are interested, you check out the app here.
