About this idea
Over 5.3 million students take the leap into college annually across North America. This time of change and excitement can much too often become a time of fear and uncertainty: how do I find friends? What if my roommate is terrible? MeetYourClass is a social networking platform that changes the way incoming students transition to college and find roommates, friends, and organizations. The platform automates the management process of college groups on Instagram, which allows us to funnel students into other social networking tool. Rather than scrolling through an endless feed of Instagram posts to meet people, students are discoverable through “filters.” For example, you can find all the neat freak, early bird, psych majors who play tennis and are looking for a roommate.
While providing a great student experience, we can also provide analytics for universities. The data provided shows the percentage of students that are committed vs non-committed and what other schools students are considering. In efforts with universities, a stronger social media presence can be created to increase yield rates.
Our thesis comes from the fact that Gen Z does not want another platform, so by leveraging Instagram we are able to have $0 customer acquisition while funneling and using Instagram as our wedge to get users to our platform. Just recently, we have began talks with a couple universities on selling our licensing to help them grow their social media presence.
Impact
This is our third time applying to 5x5 night, in December when we first applied we had 3k account creations. When we applied again in January we had 10k. Now, applying in February we have over 25k account creations. Students are loving our platform and we are estimated to help form 75k pairings of roommates at this pace, and 200k close friends. By democratizing the way students meet each other before campus we are have a legitimate change.
What I'll do with $5,000
As mentioned, we are growing very quickly. As a college student growing up in Grand Rapids, now at UofM, my funds aren't as liquid to help bolster our growth (especially as this is 100% bootstrapped). With the $5,000 I can hire content creators and a few moderators to help provide great resources for students as I continue to focus on maintaining growth and expansion. Although we have added support for 70 universities since December, there are still many other universities we would like to support either in California or smaller schools where there is no community yet formed.
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