Givibes

International and relocated students face a specific kind of loneliness — not from having too few connections, but from a mismatch between the social life they want and what they can actually find. Event and community information in most cities is scattered across Instagram, WhatsApp groups, and word of mouth, forcing newcomers to piece together a social life from fragments.

Givibes started as a geolocated discovery platform positioned between generic social media and structured ticketing platforms — but the first Lean Canvas iteration was full of untested assumptions. Customer interviews in iteration two sharpened the model: students wanted a "new arrival mode," verified events to build trust, and a clear split between consumer-side discovery and business-side visibility tools.

By iteration three, we had a working prototype tested through solution interviews using think-aloud protocols. Validated insights included a strong preference for a geolocated map with list view, high value placed on detailed event descriptions (cost, crowd type, vibe, language), and — notably — a clear preference for in-app ticket purchases over third-party redirects. The final business model settled into a two-sided freemium platform: free discovery for students, and paid subscriptions plus ticketing fees for organisers and businesses, with community verification unlocked as groups scale.