yap. | Devpost

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Inspiration

Trying to learn about careers can feel surprisingly stressful. Traditional coffee chats often feel robotic, overly formal, or even like mini-interviews where one person is trying to impress the other.

We noticed that people learn best about careers when conversations happen naturally, such as when doing something enjoyable, in a relaxed environment, and without the pressure of “networking.” At the same time, many students and early-career professionals want to explore industries and meet people in different roles but don’t know how to start those conversations organically.

That inspired us to build yap — a platform that turns career exploration into a social, activity-based experience rather than a transactional one.

What it does

yap is a mobile app that helps people explore careers through casual group experiences instead of formal one-on-one networking.

The app matches small groups of like-minded people based on shared interests, career paths, and location, then recommends activities for them to do together. These experiences create a more natural environment for conversations about work, industries, and career paths to happen organically.

How we built it

We designed yap as a mobile-first platform centered around group matching, social interaction, and intentional community design.

The app groups users based on:

interests
career paths
location
shared curiosity about industries

We focused heavily on designing an experience that feels approachable and socially comfortable instead of overly professional. From the branding and UI to the onboarding flow, we wanted the app to feel warm, casual, and activity-driven rather than corporate.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was designing a platform that encourages meaningful professional exploration without becoming transactional.

Most professional platforms eventually drift toward referrals, recruiting, or status signaling. We had to think carefully about how to preserve the relaxed, social nature of the experience while still allowing users to make valuable professional connections.

Another challenge was balancing structure with spontaneity. We wanted users to feel matched intentionally while still maintaining the randomness and excitement of meeting new people in a group setting.

We also spent a lot of time thinking about how to make career exploration feel emotionally approachable. Many people feel intimidated asking questions about industries they know little about, so we designed the experience to reduce pressure and normalize curiosity