If you’ve ever been faced with the opportunity to move to a new city, you know how overwhelming it can be to find people with similar, like-minded interests to hang out with. Not anymore.
Lykeme helps people find and build lasting relationships with good friends. Think, Match or Tinder, but for friends. Who you might actually want to keep around. For more than a night.
Using the app to connect with others, you can find people that share your interests before you even get to your new location.
Founded:
Josh Ogundu
Yoseph Radding
The Problem
For those moving to a new city, sometimes your only options for meeting new people are bars or parties, which can be intimidating. Many of the options online are meant to forge romantic relationships, not professional or platonic ones.
When Josh and Yoseph moved to new cities, they both experienced this problem. Yoseph reached out to Josh to work on another project and they began discussing their mutual difficulties.
Their solution was an app that acts like a social network, pointing you in the direction of people that share similar interests. By the time you meet the person, says Josh, “It takes some of the pressure off because you already know you like the same things.”
Exciting Opportunities
Josh and Yoseph are both excited to find out just how fast and how far they could go with this. “When you look at popular social media,” says Josh, “it can be both exciting and scary.” It’s clear that sites that do something right have the ability to grow large, rapidly. “It’s also scary to find out whether you really have that ability.”
Biggest Challenge
Josh and Yoseph have been faced with challenges when it comes to finding the resources to produce results on time. It’s been difficult for them to find programmers, develop their product, and get the Apple license.
Surprises
Josh was surprised to find that you don’t have to have a product out for people to believe in it, “They just have to see a business idea, and see that it can change their lives.”
Yoseph was surprised by how many social media sites simply come and go. “They try to be something too big, too fast.” Also though, he was surprised by how fast the industry is growing outside the US.
Funding
So far, Lykeme has relied on grants from local organizations for funding. They’ve received help from The Hatch, The Forest Acre grant, and an entrepreneur grant from MSU.
The Future
In their first year, Lykeme would like to have a robust user base. Millions of users is the aim, and they think it can be done, “If it’s good and useful, it grows quickly.”
They would eventually like to add an additional service to the app, allowing you to purchase events to your area right from the app, and store them there. You can see what’s going on in your area, or the area you’re moving to, and there’s no way to lose the tickets.
“We simply want to makes lives better for our users.”
Advice
Josh’s advice to new entrepreneurs would be to solve a scalable problem. Don’t just look at a problem that affects you, but many other people as well. “Then it can grow, and other people will be able to relate and identify.”
Connect
To become a part of their beta test, visit their website
