chatting nexus

Chatting Nexus connects students and young professionals with mentors for 30-minute coffee chats, turning career and study questions into clear next steps.

Comment

Chatting Nexus

Inspiration

Chatting Nexus began as a final project in my MBA program. My team originally used Lovable to create a prototype based on a simple problem: students and young professionals often need practical guidance but do not know whom to ask.

After the course ended, I decided to transform our prototype into a functional website. I wanted to create a platform where users could speak with alumni, peers, and experienced professionals who had already faced similar academic or career decisions.

Sometimes, one conversation with the right person can make the next step much clearer.

What It Does

Chatting Nexus connects students and young professionals with suitable mentors through focused 30-minute coffee chats.

Users can:

  • Explore mentors based on their goals
  • Review mentors' backgrounds and areas of experience
  • Find guidance on studying abroad, job searching, interviews, and career transitions
  • Book conversations and organize their next steps
  • Use the platform in either English or Chinese

The core user journey is:

  1. Identify a question or challenge
  2. Find someone with relevant experience
  3. Schedule a focused conversation
  4. Turn the advice into a practical next step

How I Built It

The original idea was presented as a Lovable prototype during my MBA course. To turn it into a real website, I first had to understand how pages, navigation, user flows, data, and platform features work together.

Because I am not a professional developer, I learned while building. I divided the project into smaller components and developed them step by step:

  • Homepage and platform positioning
  • Mentor discovery and profiles
  • Topic-based matching
  • Booking and scheduling flow
  • Conversation history
  • Bilingual interface
  • Feedback, reporting, and trust mechanisms
  • Responsive layouts for desktop and mobile devices

I repeatedly tested the website, identified unclear or incomplete experiences, and improved each part through iteration.

I think of the platform's value as:

$$ V = R \times Q \times A $$

where:

  • (V) represents the value of a conversation
  • (R) represents the relevance of the mentor's experience
  • (Q) represents the quality of the conversation
  • (A) represents how actionable the advice is

This reflects the main principle behind Chatting Nexus: a useful conversation requires the right person, a meaningful discussion, and a clear next action.

Challenges I Ran Into

My greatest challenge was turning a visual prototype into a functional product. A prototype can demonstrate an idea, but a real platform requires every page, interaction, and user decision to work together.

Since I did not have a professional development background, I also had to learn unfamiliar concepts while applying them immediately. Website architecture, responsive design, data organization, authentication, and user experience were all part of the learning process.

Another challenge was balancing ambition with usability. I had many ideas for additional features, but adding too much could make the platform confusing. I therefore focused on its central purpose: helping users find the right person and leave each conversation with a clearer next step.

What I Learned

This project taught me that building a product is not only about writing code. It also requires understanding users, defining a clear problem, organizing information, prioritizing features, and continuously improving the experience.

Most importantly, I learned how to approach unfamiliar technical challenges. Instead of trying to master everything before starting, I broke each problem into smaller tasks and learned what I needed at each stage.

Chatting Nexus represents my transition from developing an MBA project idea to building a real product through curiosity, persistence, and continuous learning.

What's Next

My next goal is to continue improving the mentor-matching and booking experience, invite real mentors and users to test the platform, and use their feedback to make every coffee chat more relevant, trustworthy, and actionable.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates