The CEO Of Revoteen Talks Connecting Teens To Opportunities ft. Aditya Jain
Episode Summary
Aditya is 15 and started Revoteen to connect teens to opportunities. The platform has quickly grown to 3000 users with more joining every day.
We chat about how he got started, what's next for Revoteen and advice for students wanting to do the same.
Resources and links
Timecodes:
[00:01:37] How Revoteen works
[00:04:51] Challenges of building an app
[00:13:40] Driving the growth of a new platform
[00:18:02] Managing a student organisation
[00:24:35] Communicating within a team
[00:26:18] The mindset shift of being a CEO
Quotes from this Episode:
"So we decided if we could come up with a platform, a networking platform where students can find opportunities that are tailored to them connect with students who share their passions, and like, highlight who they are holistically as a student and individual outside of school, that would be perfect." [00:03:26]
"So while communication is obviously important, I think the level of communication and like what you're communicating like specific tasks, specific deadlines, specific goals and action items, that's the most important thing." [00:24:36]
The CEO Of Revoteen Talks Connecting Teens To Opportunities ft. Aditya Jain
Episode Summary
Aditya is 15 and started Revoteen to connect teens to opportunities. The platform has quickly grown to 3000 users with more joining every day.
We chat about how he got started, what's next for Revoteen and advice for students wanting to do the same.
Resources and links
Timecodes:
[00:01:37] How Revoteen works
[00:04:51] Challenges of building an app
[00:13:40] Driving the growth of a new platform
[00:18:02] Managing a student organisation
[00:24:35] Communicating within a team
[00:26:18] The mindset shift of being a CEO
Quotes from this Episode:
"So we decided if we could come up with a platform, a networking platform where students can find opportunities that are tailored to them connect with students who share their passions, and like, highlight who they are holistically as a student and individual outside of school, that would be perfect." [00:03:26]
"So while communication is obviously important, I think the level of communication and like what you're communicating like specific tasks, specific deadlines, specific goals and action items, that's the most important thing." [00:24:36]
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
students, platform, people, app, build, opportunities, organizations, users, post, biggest, interested, team, realize, based, ceo, type, content, school, involved, entered
SPEAKERS
Aditya Jain, Podcast Host
Podcast Host 00:00
Hi Aditya, welcome to another episode of the top of the class podcast. It's awesome to have you on the show. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Aditya Jain 00:25
Of course, it's great to be here. My name is Aditya Jain and I'm a high school junior from the Bay Area in California. And I'm also the CEO of Revoteen, which is a social networking platform connecting students to opportunities.
Podcast Host 00:38
I like how simple that is connecting students to opportunities. Can you tell me a little bit about both sides of that equation, which students and what opportunities?
Aditya Jain 00:47
Of course, so our demographic is high school and college students. And the opportunities we are involved with include opportunities from all sorts of fields, whether it be art, medicine, business, and these are students initiative opportunities, internships, summer programs, anything that students can participate in and get knowledge from get skills from collaborate with other students on and the way we involve these opportunities is through posting on the platform. So it's similar to any other social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and you can just create a post, you can reach our user base, you can interact with posts, Like Comment, Share, save things like that. And that's how we connect students through opportunities.
Podcast Host 01:24
Okay, so you've got your students who are on the platform who are looking for opportunities, who is posting the opportunities is a student's as well or is it businesses or people who might be doing their own startups, that kind of thing?
Aditya Jain 01:38
So you've got students and organizations posting opportunities. So the way it works is if I'm a student, and I have like initiative, ABC, right, and I want to expand it, I want to get build up my team, or I just want people to know about it, like what I'm doing, I can just post what to say, Hey, this is what i, this is who I am, this is what I'm doing. If you're interested, you can pm me through the platform, you can reach me here, you can fill out this form. And that's how we get a lot of the content. So the way we think of it is like a two sided marketplace, right? So like students can look at content, and they can also post content at the same time. So there's no restrictions on that. And then there's also organizations like companies who come onto the platform, right? So you can create an initiative on the app, which is essentially your company profile. And then you can also create a post that's tied to the company. So it'll be on your company's page, and also show up on students like explore pages as well.
Podcast Host 02:21
Awesome. That sounds really cool. Now, let's go through the timeline of this, because sounds like something that's probably been in the works for some time. Can you take me back to what inspired the original idea of how many iterations of that original idea that you had, potentially, and to where you are today?
Aditya Jain 02:39
Yeah, so we came up with the idea in May 2020. And the timeline for this was that this was right when the covid 19 pandemic started, right when we entered quarantine, and everything was moving virtual and online. And essentially, entering the summer, we were looking for opportunities, we were looking for things like internships, right just ways to get involved, and build up our extracurriculars. And it was we noticed that it was very hard. So like, you know, there's platforms, we can find opportunities like Instagram, LinkedIn, you can do a Google search. But everything is very saturated. And it's very hard to find things that are specifically applicable to your interests as a student. So we also noticed it's very hard to connect with students, right, because now we're entering a whole new online, like atmosphere. And it's very hard to connect with students, you can't form that sort of in person connection that you have. So you can form it was very hard to form anything beyond the surface level. So we decided if we could come up with a platform, a networking platform where students can find opportunities that are tailored to them connect with students who share their passions, and like, highlight who they are holistically as a student and individual outside of school, that would be perfect. So that's how we came up with the idea behind Revoteen. And obviously, there's a lot of tinkering. We had to get user feedback, people's feedback, find what like the actual pain points were. And we had to build off that.
Podcast Host 03:47
Yeah, let me let me go through that build process a little bit further, because that's super interesting. So what actual format is Revoteen? Is it a website plus app at this stage?
Aditya Jain 03:58
So right now, Revoteen is a mobile app on the App Store and Play Store. So Android and iOS, however, the web platform is about to enter the beta phase. So we're planning on releasing that very soon. And currently, there's a website at rev Chino comm where you can learn more about revenue teen have links to access the platform. And yeah, the web platform is, as I said, is coming up pretty soon.
Podcast Host 04:18
Okay, okay, cool. Now, a lot of our listeners, I'm sure are students who are looking at building apps as well. So take me through that process in as much detail as you want really, as to how you actually build an app and get it launched on iOS or the App Store. And I guess some of the maybe preconceptions that you had or misconceptions that you had about building an app early on. Like, you may have thought it was super hard, you may have thought it was super easy. And then perhaps the reality of it now looking back.
Aditya Jain 04:51
So I think the biggest misconception entering the process was knowing exactly what users wanted, because we were looking for our personal pain points and identified well We would want, but that doesn't always happen to be what? The student population as a whole one, right? And we figured this out really soon into the process. So we started prototyping, we started asking people what they were interested in. And we realized, Oh, no, we have to, like completely remake this concept that the app, because a lot of the things that we were implementing weren't things that students were specifically looking for, that wasn't like their pain points. So we put out a survey on Instagram, we had a lot of our close friends do it a lot of people who we didn't know as well do it and like a lot of different demographics, to identify what are people looking for, and like what will draw them onto this sort of platform, right. So as I said, we had to completely rebuild the app in October. And then from there, we had to go into a multi stage beta phase. So this is where we like release it to a close circle, then an open circle and like, continually got feedback. There's a lot of bugs on the app that like during the beta phase and a lot of different, like things that we had to iron out. So it was a lot more strenuous than we initially thought, right? It wasn't as smooth as we thought. And I think that's one of the biggest things you have to recognize, like when you're building a platform, any sort of app is that there's always going to be problems that you've never expect. And you have to like, anticipate that there's going to be the unexpected coming for you. And I think you should go in with a very, like open mindset when it comes down to these platforms. Because a lot of the time, you're gonna have to like pivot off your ideas.
Podcast Host 06:13
What kind of skill sets are actually needed to build the app? Is it coding or using some kind of platform builder or an app builder website or something like that? Are you outsourcing it to someone else, because I heard you are mentioning we a little bit as like a broader team.
Aditya Jain 06:27
So regarding the actual development, it's concordant, developed entirely by our student team, and they use flutter. So it's coded across iOS and Android simultaneously. And that's for the mobile application. And then for the web platform, they're using react js. So it's coded within our team of students. But we do have a somewhat large team. So we have a development team, marketing PR team. So all that just ties together. So we look out for like specialties and skill sets, and then we just find who's best for this job.
Podcast Host 06:59
Sweet. Okay, and are you monetizing it at this stage?
Aditya Jain 07:02
Not Not at this stage. Right now we're focusing on building the student community and like building as much of a basis we can and like having as much community interaction, before we approach the like the idea of monetization. So we want to build the best platform we can before we go into like, looking into revenue and things like that.
Podcast Host 07:16
Cool. Now, one thing that I am interested in is, when you talk about when you look at a market, like social media that is super saturated, as you mentioned, like it's got a lot of different things out there at the moment already. And how does it kind of how does that idea of creating another social media platform, but finding a niche within a saturated market? Like some people might say, you know, I'm going to find a niche that has never been done before. And that's the thing that's going to, you know, I'm going to turn into an app or whatever, I don't think many people would look at a very saturated market like social media, and say there is still space for more, or there is still an audience that is underserved within that market. So yeah, can you talk about, like, how did you come up with that idea? And then say, yeah, this is a good idea that people would actually need.
Aditya Jain 08:09
Yeah, so what we ended up doing is realize there's a lot of different aspects of students in education, right? platforms like Instagram platforms that are already existing focus on entirely on students and things like that. And what we decided is that there's a ton of different factors, a ton of different people that we can create, like an ecosystem of like a student based ecosystem. And this could be bringing schools onto the app, right? have school administration, administrators, school clubs, school, like teachers go into the app and discuss with their students. And then students can interact with other students bring on companies. And I think the thing about it being an each mark is that everything has to be very specific, right? Once you decide on making it a specific platform, the content and everything, the personalization aspect of the platform has to be like, to the point and it has to be on top of everything. And I think one more thing, especially as you said, because social media saturated, there's very high expectations when you're building a social media platform, because students are used to using platforms like Instagram, and Snapchat where everything is perfect in their opinion, right? Like, the experience on these apps is very fast, very sleek, very smooth. So if you want, like, as we tried building everything, as we build that platform up, we realized it has to be that level of high experience, like high user experience and interaction and quality. So that was one of the things that we did come up with when we're trying to build that social media platform. Right? Yeah, that
Podcast Host 09:22
is such a good point that, you know, against other social media apps, you're kind of effectively competing for attention, right? And there is a lot that goes into the thinking of, you know, Snapchat or Tick Tock or whatever, where it's like, how do you make it as compelling to stay on as possible. So what comes first, in your view, great content and user base who are posting and engaged or an app that helps facilitate that kind of thing, you know, like the colors and the formatting and all the rest of it like were you mainly focused on getting the users in Will you mainly focused on the actual app and how that looked and performed?
Aditya Jain 10:06
I think the priority is the users and the content the platform, because as I while I mentioned that the look is important, if there's no content, exactly look as amazing as it is. But nobody would come on if there's no actual need to get on, right. And I think if someone says, even if like the outlook, that the layout isn't that great, but they realize, oh, wow, I can find tons of opportunities, internships and things that would like boost myself up, they'll come onto the platform, right? If if there's content, people will come. And that's like the mindset that we adopt, and like, that's what we prioritize content. But at the same time, we prompt every time we prompt users for feedback in, right. In the app on our website, everywhere, there's a place we can give feedback. So we take that like, very highly in our priorities as well.
Podcast Host 10:47
Sweet. Okay, now talk to me about the app launch and what that looks like. Because I know some people think that like, if the app launch doesn't really immediately get, you know, hundreds or 1000s of downloads, then it might not be as popular or, you know, as much of a thing as they were hoping it to be. So how did your marketing team prepare for the app launch? And how much of a day did you make that? And have you been providing any incentives for people to join? Or like, how is the growth rate been since then, like, what kind of marketing tactics Have you been using to get more users on board? You didn't mention like reaching directly at the schools and those kinds of things? Which sounds like a good idea.
Aditya Jain 11:24
Yeah. So what what we did is getting launched or running up to that, like that date is that we heavily use social media. So Instagram, LinkedIn platform for students are active, like have very active on, we put that launch date out, and we're like, this is what's coming out. This is how it's going to benefit you. And here's how you can access the platform. Right? So running up to that launch date, we were posting very consistently on Instagram, social media, reaching out to personal connection saying, okay, we're, this is coming out, would you be interested in beta testing it would you be interested in testing upon launch, we collected like a base of emails, like running up the launch of people who'd be interested in the platform. And we sent those out, like, as soon as it launched, like five minutes later, all the emails were sent out, like revenue team has launched, here's how you can access it. And here's how you can like, get engaged. And we also reach out to schools, we're like, Hey, this is like, what we can benefit your students, your students can find tons of opportunities, they can connect with students as well through the platform. So we had a bunch of different like levels that tied together, running up to the launch. And where we sit out right now regarding users is that we have 20, over 2700 users across 40 plus countries. And there's over 400 opportunities on the app. And as we launched our web platform, as we continue pivoting off the app platform, we plan on like building that bigger building it like geographically and also like localized based off the schools. So that's where we see ourselves.
Podcast Host 12:37
Okay, that sounds really cool. Okay, so reaching out directly to schools obviously makes a lot of sense. 2700 users? And what's the current like growth trajectory? How many users per week? are you adding? Roughly?
Aditya Jain 12:51
So our trajectory is we're aiming for 250 users a week now, now that school is started, right? I think it's a completely different landscape. Because students are interested in school, school clubs, school initiatives, academics a lot more than just solely extracurriculars. So that's the factor that we've taken in mind, right? We're tracking analytics, we're tracking like, how many users are like engaging with the content, how what sources of like, where users are coming from, right, whether it be partnerships that we run with other organizations, whether it be existing media, or whether it be our website, so we're just taking a lot of these different factors in mind. And then based on that, we're trying to, like, focus heavily on what's getting the users,
Podcast Host 13:27
right. And I use is primarily coming for, in your opinion, the engagement side of things like the community or the opportunities, like, Do try and get a big name company on there to post an opportunity every now and then.
Aditya Jain 13:40
So I think the primary reason used to students come onto the platform is for the opportunities, right? Like if I put myself into a student's shoes, the big number one biggest incentive to come on to any sort of platform like this is like what I can get out of it personally, right. And I think the most obvious thing to a student is, oh, I can get an internship, I can get involved in the summer program. And that's the biggest incentive. And what we also try doing is we do try getting like opportunities from bigger, more established student organizations, bigger organizations. So what we do is we form partnerships with these organizations, right? And we're like, Hey, this is a platform where you can build the organization, it's so powerful, and we can connect with a huge base of students. And they're like, okay, yeah, we'll use this, we will post on this. And then that's how we try getting more continent to the app as well, because I'll provide a better experience and like, more things our users can take away.
Podcast Host 14:25
Okay, cool. That's awesome. Now, I want to know a little bit more about how this impacted your life. And what your days started looking like when you are the CEO of a founding a new social media platform, right? So I'm going to guess this is not something that you kind of tinker with for 2030 minutes a day and be like sweet I am done here. Like I'm gonna guess this talk. It took a fair bit of time so that Can you take me through like, what your day started looking like when you started getting more involved in Revoteen?
Aditya Jain 14:55
Yeah, so it's obviously a lot of time. Because if you think about it, you think combined A lot of different aspects, right? Whether it be development, social media, PR, marketing, and then just making sure everything's running smoothly. Because if one thing lags behind, everything lags behind, right? And with the social media platform, making sure it's always running, making sure it's always active is one of the biggest priorities, right? You always want to use it to come on and see new content, new things like that. And I'm, so it's a lot of time. And what what we do also is we do partnership calls, right? We have calls within our team with people outside of our team with advisors. So it's at least a few hours on a daily basis. And in the summer, it's obviously a lot more. But as we entered this school year, it does decrease a bit, but at the same time, there's just things that you have to do on a daily basis, right? There's no, there's no like days, we can just slack off and like not like work on it. And it's always just like pivoting every day trying to increase the users every day. And like working off that.
Podcast Host 15:49
Is there been a day, or has there been a day yet where you're like, this is something I wish I didn't start because of the amount of work it takes. And the the time and the when, I guess lack of sleep on occasions, these kinds of things.
Aditya Jain 16:03
Honestly, like, while there have been days with like, somewhat higher pressure, right, where it's just like feeling a bit more strenuous. There's not been days like we're like I flat out regretted it. Because I think the biggest The most rewarding as we build a platform like this is every time you see that user count increase, every time you see a post on the right, it just feels so rewarding, because you're like, Okay, I built this, and now people are actually using it. So I think there's definitely some days where you have to like flat out accept that. Okay, this is a lot more work than I thought, or this is a lot, like a lot harder than I thought. But at the same time, you also have to like, keep in mind, like why you started or like, what's your main goal is and like, you can't lose sight of that.
Podcast Host 16:37
Yeah, absolutely. Sorry. I think there was a either noise on your side on my side, it was in my side. Don't worry, we will be able to edit that out. And I will turn my phone. You know, those stupid screen report things? Oh, yeah. Using your phone this much? Sorry, man. I'll be able to edit that out, though. Stress? Yeah. Yeah. So one thing, one thing that I am interested in as well is, how do you set up the structure of a company in those early stages? You know, you said you introduce yourself as CEO, you've got a marketing team, PR team, etc? And then how do you go about hiring, recruiting for those kinds of roles, because something that's come up in past interviews is the challenge of number one, recruiting is often easier than people expected. Everyone's keen to get involved in something where they can call themselves, you know, head of marketing or whatever. But then long term involvement and consistent involvement from unpaid students is like, a hard part about running a student organization or a student startup, whatever it might be. So yeah, can you talk me through the recruitment side? How you got people on board? And then how you've managed to keep people engaged? Or have you had to make some tough decisions where you've been like, Hey, sorry, you're not involved in the way that we were hoping you'd be involved? We're gonna have to let you go type of thing.
Aditya Jain 18:02
Yeah. So as you mentioned, like, the biggest thing is that the team is entirely students, right. And students are a completely unique, like, group of people, right, when it comes down to commitment when it comes down to what they can contribute. And I think a recruit recruiting for us when we started, it just started with the LinkedIn post. And it was just like, Hey, we had this idea. And here's what we're planning on building. And here's what we're looking for, if you're interested in comment, interested, and we'll send you an email. That's how it started. And then we got a bunch of interaction off that like, as, as you said, even in past interviews, but it's, it was much more than we anticipated, right off the bat, people were like, hey, we'd be interested in working on this just because like the idea of like social media is like appealing to students, right? Because like students are always on social media, students are always using these types of platforms. And we're like, the idea of the project of building one of these was like, very eye catching. So off that we held interviews, like it was like five interviews on a daily basis that we'd be running. And we had the prepared questions, like, pivot off that and send out emails. So it was a lot of work when we started recruiting, and we started build separating them off of like departments, right, like, based off their, what they were contributing. So we had developments that there was like app development, web development, there was a PR team, a marketing team, a finance team. And we had people based off of like the different levels of commitment, or we have directors, specialists and interns. So we want students like understand like, what they're putting themselves into, like what commitment they can actually commit. And regarding keeping them in long term retention, I think the biggest thing is emphasizing like what they take away from it, right? Like the skills they have the connections they get with not only students from within our team, but students outside, right, partnerships, other like affiliates, and we use Trello. For task management, we use slack for communication. So one of the biggest things is emphasizing the importance of communication, right? keeping everyone in tact with each other. We have different like we have weekly meetings between like our department heads. So that's how we just tried making our team we're like a community right to the fact we're like everyone engaged with each other. Everyone knows who each other is and that's what we try building.
Podcast Host 19:55
This is awesome. I love that. So when you're coming up with a director, specialist, these types of Is that just like, sweet? This is the decision I'm making? And like you guys have to put up with it? Or do you consult with them first, like, how much of it is you as a CEO setting direction? And how much of it is, you know, checking in with the team? Because I know like, for, I guess younger generations like, Well, you know, now that I'm in the workplace type of thing, if the CEO tells me to do something, you just do it right? You know, it's fine. But like, Is it any different for you guys? Because they are unpaid? And they are the students like your age? Or maybe a little bit older, maybe a little bit younger? Or they like questioning you? Or do they accept your, your judgment calls wherever they may be?
Aditya Jain 20:41
So for most, for most cases, what we end up doing is like on the application itself, right? They choose, are you interested in applying for a directory specialist or intern position? Right? And did they explain why they specifically want that level of position? And I think one of the biggest things that like, helps them guide on decisions is like the self reflection, right? Like, why do I want to be a director? Why do I want to be a specialist? Why do I want to be interviewed? Right? They realize like, what's my actual interest level in this? And what can I actually commit? And I think that makes it very easy off the bat. And then additionally, in we have like, interviews, right, that we held the resume things like that. And from there, they were able to gauge themselves like, Okay, this is the type of work I'd be doing. And here's where I think I should be. And then from there, like, at the end of the day, we made the calls, but we did we have, we've never really had a case where people were like, Oh, I thought I should have gotten this level of position, right? Because I think by the end of that entire application process, people know exactly what type of commitment that they'll be putting themselves into, and then we just match them to that with their role. And we haven't really had any issues with that to this point.
Podcast Host 21:37
Right? Well, that's good, that's good to have no issues at this point. Have you been basing the structure of your company or the direction of your company, or your personal kind of decision making process off of anyone or anything else at the moment, like any other companies that you kind of modeling this loosely on in terms of the structure or any kind of person that you're modeling of as a result of your CEO kind of direction, a decision making processes like role models, etc?
Aditya Jain 22:09
Yeah, so while there's no like, specific one company, I'd say, I think what we end up doing is we look at like a lot of the most successful student organization, student based companies, right, and we realize, this is what they've done. Like, this is like their formula to success. This is how they keep their team members engaged and like build a skilled, valuable team. And we try to emulate that, right, we realized like, things like professionality, especially when you work with this student team, right? It's a lot more leads, right? It's a lot more like casual, right? Because you're working with students, and you have to recognize that and I think the environment we tried building is based off of like environments that we've seen in other companies that are based student led student run, like a largely made up of students. And that's what we try to emulate within our team.
Podcast Host 22:47
That seems to make a lot more sense. Because I was thinking, because you mentioned specialists, these kinds of things. You were potentially looking at something like an apple type thing, because they have specialist roles and interns and whatnot. And I thought maybe you were looking at them. But it does make a lot more sense to based your decisions of what's worked in the student space. So have you been involved in any other student led organizations where you've been like, this is working super well. And like, I love how this company or this, you know, student runs their organization? Or Flipside? Have you been involved in a student organization and been like, what is going on here? This is absolutely terrible type of thing. Like if you had those experienced openfoam, what you do?
Aditya Jain 23:31
Yeah, so what we mainly do is, as I said, like, we work with a lot of student organizations through things like partnerships, right? And based off that, like, it's very easy to tell how organized how efficient an organization is just based off of our communication with them, right? Like, oh, you're supposed to make this graphic by then you're supposed to do this by then. And then how efficiently they can respond to us how efficiently they could team settled and like, divided up, and then we're like, Okay, wow, like this is clearly working for them. But it's like, clearly not working for them. We should emulate this or like, not emulate this within our team. And like, it's very, it's like a very good like learning process. Because as we're working with them, as we're building our own users, we're also taking away like, what we can and like trying to learn what we can like improve on within our team.
Podcast Host 24:07
Yeah. Okay, that's, that's some good tips there. Is there any particular like traits or characteristics that you've noticed that made a successful student organization versus a non successful one? I mean, you've mentioned communication being key, but I'm sure there's a lot of organizations that communicate heaps, but may not be communicating the right message or whatever it might be. But yeah, is there anything from your side looking at organizations, including your own, that have been either successful or not successful? Any key vectors that you've seen?
Aditya Jain 24:36
Yeah, so while communication is obviously important, I think the level of communication and like what you're communicating like specific tasks, specific deadlines, specific goals and action items, that's the most important thing, right? Because I think if you have everything if you do everything you do within your team without like, a clear goal, or like a clear check point that you want to reach, you're never really going to get anywhere cuz you're always just gonna be free flowing and moving around and like, going on to whatever you see first and latching on to that and I think that's all Very good approach because like, you don't really have any aim, or you don't have any like Target. And I think the biggest thing for a student organization is always knowing where you want to go where you want to be. And then like, next week, by next week, I don't have this. But next month, I want to have this done by like, a few months from now, here's how many users how many people we want on our social media and on our app, and based off that we set goals and everyone works on those. And we look at those, like frequently. And I think that's what a lot of organizations do. And that's what we took away. And we're like, Okay, this works. This clearly works for them. This works, this is gonna work for us, too. That's what we end up doing. Right? Yeah,
Podcast Host 25:31
that must be a very challenging thing. For some organizations, I can understand that some people who start organizations don't, or are afraid of making kind of like, hard goals type of thing, for fear of frightening people away, being like, Oh, this is too hard. It feels like another assignment, unveiling type of thing, right? So there must be a way of as you said, like communicating that and making people feel like hey, you know, this is something that you're getting out of it to, like you're getting this experience, you're getting the chance to put this on your resume or your college application, whatever it is, which is really important. But for you as a CEO, has there been any mindset shift? Or is this kind of just the way you operate? 100% of the time anyway?
Aditya Jain 26:18
So yeah, so when we started, I think everything was a lot more free flowing, and everything was like, Okay, let's just try getting this done. Let's try getting that done. And we every time, every time we came up with a new idea, or like a new concept, or new like screen, or a new like a feature, right? We're like, okay, let's just implement this, let's add this onto our to do list, right? But the thing is, it doesn't work like that, right? Because if you have if you everything, if you add everything you see as like a good idea to implement, you'll never actually implement anything, because the entire time you think you're ideating, right? And I realize, and we realize that and we're like, okay, we need to take this practically, we need to take this realistically. And we need to have like a realistic timeline. Right. So like one story specifically, was, when we started in May, we were planning on releasing the full app in like June or July. And we realized, like, you can't build an app in one or two months, especially an app that like social media platform, and we realized, okay, let's slow this down. And let's take the time to build something that's actually valuable and useful. And, um, from there, we realized, okay, we should start taking things slowly, we should start taking things like one by one, right? We can't be like doing like, 30 different things at once, or none of those 30 things are gonna get done. Take this, take this one feature work on this this week, take this next feature work on this the next week. And then from there, everything from a lot more efficient. And like, that's how we adopted that mindset.
Podcast Host 27:30
Right? Yeah, that's Yeah, cuz I'd say that, like, you know, you come across as like, super onto it, and very focused and these kinds of things. Like, there's not many people like, how old are you? 16-17?
Aditya Jain
I'm 15
Podcast Host
Okay, well, congratulations, firstly, for being 15 and also for doing repetative 15. But there's not many 15 year olds who have that much kind of like, laser focus type of thing. So when you're looking at the, you know, where the company is going next, as the CEO, you know, you're supposed to have the vision and direction type of thing. Have you got like a set list of goals that you say, Hey, this is the kind of metrics you want to hit, this is what we want to do. And, you know, you've got like, your, your guidebook now that you really try and stick to as best you can.
Aditya Jain 28:15
Yeah, so our key vision is like, make the time as many opportunities as we can onto the app. And what we realize is like, right now, one of the issues with the platform, and one of the issues, like in general, is that if I'm a user from like, some country that like, let's say, like Pakistan, for example, right, now, I'm looking at the album, looking at opportunities, I may tailor, I'm only gonna find like a few things, right. And I think one of the issues with that is that we want as much content for people like across the world, right? Because we're emphasizing the fact that it's a global platform. So our bigger vision is to have opportunities on a local and global scale, right? Because you have to have a perfect blend of the two. So like, if I want to find something in my community, I can find if I want to find something that's International, across the world and remote, I can find that as well. So that's like how we the vision that we plan on expanding on and also working with, like bigger companies, right, with more reputable companies that attract more people and saying, hey, you have a super like, focused, passionate, talented user base here. If you have these internships open for students, Robbins is the place to post them. And they we want to build our community off of that. And like everyone on the app should be able to be able to find something that's specifically tailored to their interests, because that's like the main purpose behind that. And that's our vision for it.
Podcast Host 29:23
Right? Perfect. Perfect. Now, continue the pitch because we're getting there. I love it. Let's say, well, let's ask students how they can get involved like we've a student is out here in Australia or New Zealand river, like they're interested in, what can they do to get involved either a post content or be be a student who consumes content and opportunities?
Aditya Jain 29:44
So if I'm a student across the world, and I see Revoteen, I'm like, okay, there's a lot of kids from the US, India, these types of countries and I'm like, I want to have this sort of community at my school. Right. I think the great thing right routine is it makes it very simple for you. Routine has a school's feature where you can connect with students off your school, you can invite students onto campus. form you can post for your school clubs. And it makes it very easy for someone to simply start a community off of one user in a region. Right? Apart from that we've actually we've added a feature we can like highlight your country, right? Because we understand that your region is a very important aspect of who you are as a student, right? It guides what initiatives you partake in, like, what opportunities are available to you, and what type of things I like, you're gonna post, right. And I think that the great thing right now about student organizations is that almost all of them are global in some fashion, right? Because of like, the remote learning all this, like the remote environment that we've entered into every organization moved online. And that makes it a lot easier for like communication, like with someone across the world, right? Because before, you can just have a meeting with someone who's like, across like the world, right? And I'm like, that makes it a lot easier. Because you have zoom, you have things like that these are all these great tools for organizations. So if I'm a student, and I want to join Revoteen, I want that sort of community, we make it very easy, right? We show you, here's students where you're reaching here, students at your school, here's your school itself, right? Like, you can just go straight off the bat onto the platform, and get connected right away, we suggest you use this we suggest you posts based off of like your fields of interest. And it's like very, very easy to get in that community.
Podcast Host 31:10
Awesome. Awesome. So they just have to go on to like iOS and the App Store, whatever and search for Revoteen.
Aditya Jain 31:17
Yeah. And it's just get into the platform straightaway discover opportunities with students and then bring on your own friends too.
Podcast Host 31:23
Sweet. Well, I'll definitely put a couple of links in the show notes to guide people to that. And hopefully they can get involved but from your side for you personally going forward, like have you got a goal in terms of college? Are you looking now just to completely or the entrepreneur route? Like, what's the future hold for you after this experience?
Aditya Jain 31:42
So I want to go into business. So that's where I see my future in. And I'm obviously I think rubbish is a great experience, wherever it is, like, I think the best thing about entrepreneurship is the best way to go about it is experience, right? Like you can't study entrepreneurship from sort of some sort of books and things like that, you have to go out there and like do it right, you have to be a go getter. And I think everything is a great experience. And for the future revenue, we obviously want to build that platform, but my personal aspirations is to go to college study business, become like an entrepreneur as I grow. And like that's how I see myself regarding career and education.
Podcast Host 32:16
Awesome, awesome. Any particular colleges in mind?
Aditya Jain 32:20
My dream school is Wharton at UPenn.
Podcast Host 32:23
Wharton UPenn awesome. I think we've had a couple of people from what new pen on the podcast, you might have to go through and check some of their episodes. Any other advice that you would give to students who are aspiring entrepreneurs like yourself,
Aditya Jain 32:36
I'd say don't let the fear of like not working out stop you from going out and doing it. Because I think the best thing about a student is that you have so much in front of you, right? You have so much you have all this time. And there's no better time than when you're a student to go out there and do it right, you have a huge base of people who you know, your school, your friends at school, right people outside of school, you have so many resources available to you. Like I think right now students have more resources than ever before. And I think, go Don't be afraid to go out and like, do what you're actually interested in and only partake in something that you're truly passionate about, right? Because you don't want it to feel like you're doing the work every time like you don't want to go back, come back from school and start working on your initiative and be like, Oh, man, this is more work, right? You want to go out you want you want that feeling where it's like you're doing it for yourself, you're doing it like because you're actually interested in it. And then it won't feel tedious, right? It won't feel like Oh, man, I'm doing all this work. Right. And I think it's like an escape from things like school. So that should be the mindset that you have. And that should be like how you approach being a student entrepreneur. Awesome. Awesome.
Podcast Host 33:33
Well, Aditya, it's been awesome having you on the show, man. And thank you so much for your insights into creating river teen building a fantastic platform for teenagers to get involved in. So teenagers and you know, other students as well, people who've been older, I'm sure. People younger, probably even like probably some 12 year olds who are hustling on there too, right? Which is, which is awesome. So I'll definitely put that in the show notes. I really encourage students to get involved. These kinds of platforms, really rely on students who are heeding the call, understanding that this is specifically for them and being like, yes, I'm going to get involved and be a part of this. Because it really could, you know, kick off into something a lot bigger, because I know there's a lot of students who are hustling on LinkedIn, and like, you know, do trying to do their thing there. But some people are a bit intimidated by that. So it's great to see a platform that is purely dedicated to opportunities for students like gravity. And yeah, really great place to you know, hopefully get some opportunities from around the world. So yeah, I'll definitely put that in the show notes. And yeah, out also either to ask, How can people follow you personally? Is it LinkedIn, Instagram, if people wanted to connect with you?
Aditya Jain 34:37
Yeah. So if you want to connect with me, I have you can kind of do routine for stuff. But apart from that, I have a LinkedIn and Instagram so you can add me on there. And I'd love to talk regarding ideas, initiatives, advice, anything, just reach out to me and that'd be amazing.
Podcast Host 34:57
Awesome. Awesome. Thanks for coming on the show man. I look forward to seeing the episode far and wide.
Aditya Jain 35:00
Yep. All right. Thank you.