CoffeeSpace August 2024 Updates

Hi CoffeeSpacers, it's Hazim here from CoffeeSpace!

Today's August update is a big one – from user and activity milestones to demographic breakdowns, feature rollouts + plans, and the launch of our "CoffeeSpace Success Stories" series, we have a lot in store. Let’s dive right in!

Growth & Traction

🚀   Closing in on the 5,000 Users & 150,000 Swipes Milestones

• As of today, we're at 4,900 signups i.e. just 100 users away from passing the big 5K!
• The conversion rate has stayed roughly equal i.e. every 12.1 swipes -> 3.2 invites -> 1 match (aggregate: 149,500 swipes -> 40,200 invites -> 12,400 double opt-in i.e. 6,200 matches)

🕸️ User Demographics

• Portfolio: 54.4% operations, sales, design : 45.6% engineering, AI/ML
• Idea Status: 63.3% open to ideas/exploring : 36.7% committed
• Prior Startup Experience: 5% exited : 34% founded : 39% worked : 22% no prior exp.
• Geography: 61% North America : 20% Asia : 13% Europe : 4% Africa : 2% Others
• Top 5 Schools by User Numbers: 1) Stanford, 2) Berkeley, 3) CMU, 4) Harvard, 5) Columbia
• Top 5 Companies by User Numbers: 1) Stealth, 2) Amazon, 3) Google, 4) Meta, 5) Microsoft

Product

📨 Referral Feature is Live!

• How to get to the referral tab:
  • Profile Tab -> Refer -> Invite Friends
• Each time a friend signs up with your referral code and gets approved, you'll both get a week of complimentary Business Class Membership worth $24.99!
• The reward will be loaded into your rewards wallet, and you can redeem it anytime.

ℹ️ LinkedIn Profile Picture + Data Integration

• Profile picture now flows from your LinkedIn to CoffeeSpace, but you can also edit it
• The LinkedIn education and experience data for all users is now in our backend database, and we should be able to push the UI in the coming 1-2 weeks

🔎 Updated Preferences List

• Based on the feedback and requests by many, we've revised the preference filters so you can now filter for commitment level (full-time, part-time) and matching intention (exploring ideas, looking for someone to join idea) as part of the free tier on CoffeeSpace!

🔮 Upcoming in the Pipeline

• We are working on bringing you more features in CoffeeSpace, which includes the following you can expect soon:
  • Domain expertise filter
  • Save
  • Discover/Search
  • Coffee Treat (i.e. super-swipe)

Extras

🎉 Community Round Subscribed at 80% After Upsizing

• We’re pleased to share that we passed our initial target in 7 weeks! Given the interest, we expanded the round by 2.5x and are now 80% of the way to our revised $250k goal
• If you’re curious to learn more, check out our one-pager or schedule a call
• Welcoming our latest investors:
  • Tosh Rayadhurgam (Engineering Leadership @ Meta AI)
  • Enrico Bonatti (VC, HBS Alum)
  • Abhi Chopra (Associate Director @ First Republic Bank)
  • Zhaoqi Li (Solutions Engineer @ Enigma Technology, Ex-Sisu)
  • Krutarth Rao (SWE @ AWS

✨ Launch of Our Cofounder Success Stories Series

• We're sharing the success stories of people who are now working together after matching on CoffeeSpace! Check out our first feature on Ihsan and Alexander's journey.
• If you'd like your match to be featured on our blog + socials too, you can fill in this form and we'll be in touch!

📣   Shoutouts

Partnerships are one of the main ways we’re growing CoffeeSpace, and we’ve just added 3 amazing new partners recently!

• MatchPlay: Our first new partner helps create personalized roadmaps for founders to successfully build their companies while matching them directly with what they need for each step, whether they are investors, mentors, accelerators, or more. The best part? You can start using these resources at no cost (yes, you read that right)
• Peer2Peer: The first social club for 7K+ senior engineers from the top 50 CS schools, blending tier 1 startup and FAANG experience. Peer2Peer highlights members from within the community to help facilitate meaningful networking
• Daytwo.io: A platform that helps founders launch their app on Day 2, rather than months. It provides the boilerplate code needed to go live faster, enabling you to start iterating your product earlier

Our partner Antler will soon be opening their founder residency applications for the Fall 2024 cohort – as before CoffeeSpace members will get an expedited review through our referrals. More on this in the next update!

That's all for this edition, thanks for reading all the way through!

Wishing you a fantastic rest of the week, and as always, feel free to reach out with any questions or feedback :)

Cheers,
Hazim, Carin & Fauzan