Switches
I'm incredibly interested in tech start-ups and on the first weekend of April, 2011 I participated in 3 Day Startup Barcelona where the goal was for 40 people to work together for one weekend to get one (or multiple) tech start-ups off the ground. This means rapid ideation and even more rapid execution.
By the time we nailed down what we would be doing, we really only had just a little over a day for the actual execution. What you see here is the product of that day.
I worked on Switches, a great little Android app that would blur the barrier between digital and real world friendships - something I have been interested in for a while. I can't tell you too much about the details, but the basics are this. We match you with other users based on your similarities and then when you get within a certain radius of a similar user, we let you know and we give you a way to talk to them. (You can make the filter more sensitive if you are more hesitant)
In the process, we identified Switches as an app that heavily in the real world, thereby distinguishing itself from many of the other "social" apps out there.
I helped design the overall branding, the look and feel, and the actual user interface of the app.
In addition to the Android app, I also designed and coded a web application where users could see their recent activity, browse profiles that they had switched, and connect with users. It was a very crude interface, but one which will be easy to build on in the future.
The Results
At the end of the weekend we presented our idea to a panel of start-up experts and a room full of entrepreneurs and investors. I unfortunately cannot share too much about what happened after that, but feel free to read some more about the event in some of the following links.
