Offline
Friend-making app for college students
Problem
Despite spending 6+ hours a day on their phone, college students have no way to discover peers and make friends online.
Social media isn’t school-specific and doesn’t display information students need for making friends. Universities don’t provide their students with any form of online directory to discover peers.
As a result, over 9 million students in the US feel disconnected, severely impacting their mental and physical health. Universities lose millions of dollars each year due to freshmen who transfer out after not finding their people.
In 2023, the Department of Health declared loneliness an official epidemic. They found loneliness has the same impact on lifespan as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Studies show lonely students are 4x more likely to experience psychological distress.
Solution
Offline is a modern online directory that helps students find compatible peers for friendship, networking, and collaboration. Students can filter to find exactly who they're looking for in seconds.
Unlike existing solutions, Offline is modern, displays useful information, and is designed to bring compatible students together in real life. Instead of taking months to license the software, universities can get started in less than a week.
Traction
Offline is live in the app store with over $18k in ARR and 1,000+ users. We’ve launched at several schools, with 10% of University of Oregon users making friends within the first two weeks. An independent study done for doctoral research found that Offline increases students’ sense of belongingness (key for increasing university retention rates).
Team
Briggs Boardman created Offline after his own struggle to find community at Chapman University. After graduation, he discovered this same problem affected the majority of students, with no indication that a solution was being built. The team now includes talented interns from Stanford and Brown who are passionate about solving campus disconnection.
Vision
Offline will be the go-to platform for building and maintaining personal relationships for Gen Z. With the destigmatization of loneliness and growing value of mental health, Offline is well-positioned to take advantage of cultural and technical tailwinds.
We plan on launching one campus at a time in highly dense areas like Boston and Burlington. This way, after students graduate or go home for the summer, they are surrounded by thousands of people their age. A platform like Offline would benefit both students and local businesses hosting meetups in the Burlington area.
Fundraising
We’re raising up to $500k to launch the top 200 colleges and build features that universities and students keep requesting. Our goal is to raise at least $50k by June 15th to secure college contracts during the summer buying season and capture a large portion of the 2029 class before they arrive on campus.