BranchOut

Inspiration

BranchOut was inspired by a real moment we experienced during this hackathon. We came as a team of two, and by pure chance, we met two other students from the same university just different campuses and ended up building this project together. That made us realize how many opportunities are missed simply because people don’t know who’s around them. At the same time, we saw how broken the traditional path has become, with students sending hundreds of applications and still struggling to gain experience.

What it does

We built BranchOut to solve this by helping students discover and connect with people and projects around them.

How we built it

We built BranchOut by focusing on one core idea: making connections simple and actionable. We started by designing a clean user flow signup, discover, and connect and then implemented it using a lightweight backend with Supabase for user data, matching, and messaging. We added a freemium model with Stripe to test monetization early, and designed profiles inspired by Hinge to make interactions more natural and engaging. Throughout the process, we iterated quickly, testing features in real time and constantly simplifying the product to focus only on what delivers value: helping users connect.

Challenges we ran into

One of our main challenges was building a reliable backend for matching and messaging while keeping the product simple and functional under time constraints and keep the safety

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud that we built a working product in such a short time, with a fully functional core flow where users can sign up, discover others, and start conversations. More importantly, we’re proud of how grounded the idea is in a real problem we experienced ourselves. We also created a product that feels intuitive and human, not like a traditional networking platform. Finally, we’re proud of how quickly we aligned as a team — starting as strangers and ending up building something meaningful together.

What we learned

Throughout this project, we learned how important it is to validate ideas quickly, focus on a simple core product, and iterate based on real user feedback.

What's next for BranchOut

Our next step is to take BranchOut beyond the hackathon and test it in real life on our campuses at FDU. We plan to talk to as many students as possible, run surveys, and gather feedback to better understand how they currently find opportunities. We’ll also organize small events to drive adoption and create real usage of the app. This will allow us to iterate quickly, improve the product, and validate engagement before expanding to other universities. Our long-term vision is to scale BranchOut campus by campus and make opportunities visible everywhere.

Built With

• chatgpt
• claude
• javascript
• lovable
• node.js
• python
• react
• stripe
• supabase