@ayusin Why can't we simply use Slack at college? Why did you feel there is a need for this? Slack is free, and widely tested out. What niche do you plan to create? Just wanted to gain some insights.
@ank2302 Thanks for digging deep. The way we see it is that Slack does messaging and X other things like business admin tools and third-party integration tools, relevant for businesses. Helpingo wants to do messaging with Y other things relevant to students like peer discovery, notes sharing and event/assignment announcements.
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@ayusin (notes-sharing in helpingo = attachments in a channel in slack), (event/assignment announcement = reminders in a channel in slack). But, I guess people might have said the same thing when slack started (there was WhatsApp etc.). One never knows what works! Best of luck, get growth - hacking!
@ank2302 Target audience is quite different for both. And so does the look and feel. Notes sharing for students might not be equal to attachments for businesses. Because the context is different, so will the use-case, and hence the design and usage. While the two platforms look similar at surface, there would be big differences fundamentally.
Ofcourse at the end of the day, you never know what works. Everything is a remix! :)
Congrats to @ayusin on launching the Helpingo app for college students.
While families use WhatsApp, friends use Messenger, offices use Slack and communities use forums, college students are still stuck in a mix of tools with college mails, Facebook groups, word-of-mouth, WhatsApp groups and physical notice boards. This makes their life stressful because there is always a fear of missing out and always something happening.
Enter Helpingo. They are starting off with a simple app. You create hubs and then you can get into a discussion in these hubs. Others are notified when some discussion begins.
Additionally to make an important announcement, you simply convert your message into a card and it shows up on the Dashboard along with notifying everyone.
The app is mobile-first, Android-first (because India) and built in React Native and is a great example of what the technology can do. Built with love in Bangalore, India. Ping ayushi@helpingo.in if you'd like to intern remotely!
Thanks a lot @paramaggarwal. We are truly honoured to be featured here. :)
Helpingo is an app that simplifies communication within college. Would love to have a lot of feedback from the awesome people out here.
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I've seen a lot of these apps, but none have taken off bc they don't reach critical mass. As much as I love products with good UI/UX, for the college demo I don't see a lower-friction way to replace Facebook groups.
@bryantpeng I agree it is tough to get past the initial resistance. However from our research, college students are already moving away from Facebook groups to Whatsapp groups for instant communication. They need something fast and mobile-friendly.
We will be using lots of growth hacks to get adopted in colleges. Keeping fingers crossed :)
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How does this differentiate from getstudyroom.com?
@kevinnguyen Both are in the same domain so there are high chances of overlapping. From what I see, StudyRoom is a lot about doing homework together and doing combined studies while Helpingo is aiming to be the default communication app for students on a daily basis.
Having said that, StudyRoom is quite an established platform and this will give us a deeper perspective of how they are approaching towards solving the problems of college students. Thanks for sharing. :)
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