Year: 2019–2021

Medium: Community building app.

Conception: I came to work on this project after being approached by my longtime mentee and friend, Kangle Lin, who asked for assistance in his new business venture. While in development, the project was called Funny Bone AI and was initially conceived as a dating app which connected people based first on their sense of humor, followed by their culture, food, and hobbies before finally allowing them to view images and videos of their matches. While marketing and testing the app, we realized that the program functioned better as a community builder, rebranded the app as GumDrop and altered the project to connect college students with potential friends and community.

Making: Over the course of this project, I provided business mentoring, conducted market research, consulted on branding design and marketing, made app prototypes, and recruited student beta testers.

Impact: The app was bought by the University of Texas and has been very successful in assisting incoming students to better integrate into their college community.

Legacy: The University of Texas continues to offer GumDrop as a free resource to all of their first-year students and is predominantly used to connect incoming students with potential roommates, friends, and community events which suit their unique preferences.