At the end of my studies at Hyper Island, I completed an industrial placement at Djungo, an early stage social discovery startup. Djungo is a community-driven, social discovery platform that encourages Generation Z to get together in real life.
In this project I was an individual contributor collaborating with a UX designer and a product lead. I was responsible for strategic and investor relations elements, including workshop facilitation as well as the design and content of the final outputs including the pitch deck.
The Djungo team are very early on their journey as a social discovery platform facilitating IRL meetups, having previously pivoted away from a qualitative dating app and another iteration involving in-app chat groups for a Gen Z audience. When I joined the project, there was a clear design for the MVP but the product lacked an exciting future vision which would help the founder make an investment case for their upcoming seed round.
Between the three collaborators, we conducted general research into human behaviour, such as how and where young people find friends and socialise. I conducted an in-depth competitor analysis, which included a comparison of the competitors' features. What we found is the importance of third places for socialising and meeting new places (a sociological concept where the first place refers to your home, and second place your school or place of work). This would also provide the product with a strong differentiating factor against the competition.
Based on our research, our hypothesis was that using shared physical third places as a way to connect users would help create a social context and a stronger bond, ultimately leading to more natural first IRL meetings, and potentially, a greater chance of forging a friendship. Based on this hypothesis for the future, we ideated further on how this could help shape a strong value proposition for our consumer users. We also identified three other user groups which would support the Djungo ecosystem and generate additional revenue streams.
After refining the future vision with the founders and the rest of the Djungo team, I created a new version of the pitch deck which we used to test our latest thinking with the current and potential future investors. I participated in pitch meetings and was able to present the new vision and business model. The reaction was generally positive and helped us gain some additional investment.
Working on this project was incredibly exciting and rewarding. It was so useful to collaborate with other team members as we had complementary strengths that ensured our outputs were holistic and well-developed by the time we sought feedback from others.
As my main focus was the B2C monetisation project (see previous project page) it was occasionally challenging to find time to do this innovation work. Nevertheless it was a great experience to facilitate our innovation sessions and to work with such a strong team.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed participating in pitch meetings with VC and angel investors - it was so interesting to hear their feedback and perspectives in the industry.
