Fundo Connect is a personalized, mindful way of networking. Based on your interests and experience, we provide a daily dose of inspiring, like-minded people to meet nearby in your area. Whether you’re seeking friends or employees, each swipe is a new opportunity and a new discovery.

Fundo aims to:

Inspire. We believe in serendipity. Personally and professionally, we believe that connecting inspiring people creates a meaningful, fulfilling and healthy co-existence.

Personalize. Create your profile and share your bio, work history, industry and education. State your interests and professional goals, or simply share information from your CV or LinkedIn.

Swipe. Swipe anonymously through pictures and bios for 1 minute a day and open your network to a world of opportunities. Choose “Pass” or “Connect” to search for inspiring people. Fundo gets smarter with each swipe and curates 10 - 15 daily suggestions based on tagged interests, location and professional experience.

Network. We take the ‘work’ out of networking and provide the opportunity to grow as a professional and as an individual. Somewhat like “business dating,” Fundo lets you contact and meet other professionals, co-founders, entrepreneurs and mentors at your convenience.

Connect. Fundo lets you know when an interest is mutual, that way you can start chatting right away with your new connections - without the awkwardness of a request to connect. Feel free to break the ice with our built-in introductions or set up a call or video chat.

Engage. Have an open mind, curious attitude and eagerness to help others learn and succeed. Share aspirations, bond with people, and embark on new journeys.

Discover. Discover entrepreneurs, founders, professionals, mentors, artists, among other countless talented and inspiring individuals around you and throughout the world.

Why an in-person networking tool in a digital age?

It's hard to create meaningful and sustained professional relationships with people you meet through online networking sites like LinkedIn.

Many professionals understand that their networks are a key to business and personal success. And in the age of online social networking, apparent opportunities to connect with new people are everywhere. But developing professional connections purely through online tools like LinkedIn rarely result in meaningful and fruitful professional relationships. 

Design challenge: 

How can we help working professionals overcome these barriers and create a more genuine and effective in-person networking experience with the help of information technology?

1.  Research and Findings

Interview Objectives: Through secondary research and interviews, I gained an initial understanding of the target user’s networking motivations, goals and barriers. Six professionals who are networking activities-goers participated the interview.

Interview Findings:

 a. Motivations and goals for networking

 b. Barriers and sources of discomfort during networking

Survey respondents broadly reflected the demographics of target users. Near 90% percent of them are full time worker who are my target users. Furthermore, the respondents have almost same ratio for men and women, quite evenly spread out to different regions in the United States, who belongs to different age groups. 

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The important findings that will impact the future design includes:

1. Weekdays after work ( happy hour) are most preferable time slot of networking.

2. People prefer to go to networking event with someone else.

3. "Word-of –mouth" is how people find out about networking opportunities.

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Therefore, it makes sense to target the time slot between 5pm-8pm as our primary service time and to design a mobile app or a website, with features that encourage word-of-mouth adoption.

2. Personas

In order to illustrate the key audience of my product, and to help potential stakeholders gain more sympathy for the target issues, I decided to build personas. After combining the major findings from the interviews and the surveys with other research reports I gathered online, I listed the insights I had developed which could impact the future design, sorted them on the whiteboard, and built two personas: Joseph Hat, Mel Mellow and Mufa Active.

From research findings to design solution

I use a chart to list all the research findings: the users’ needs and the markets demanding, and brainstorm the corresponding solutions. It allows me to organize research information in order to not slip any valuable findings. Afterwards I select the solutions which are more possible to be fit into a real life user scenario: looking for events- arriving at events - event onsite - after events.

3. Wireframes

#ZimGrid

#ZimGrid, the heart of Fundo Connect’s functionality lets you contact and meet other professionals, co-founders, entrepreneurs and mentors at your convenience, Somewhat like “business dating,”

We take the ‘work’ out of networking and provide the opportunity to grow as a professional and as an individual.

With #ZimGrid coming to mobile, you can browse anonymously through pictures and bios of randomly generated profiles based on your location and interests per day and open your network to a world of opportunities. Choose “Pass” or “Meet” to search for inspiring people. ZimGrid gets smarter with each “connect” and curates daily suggestions based on tagged interests, and location.

App features