Clarifying Questions‍

Before moving forward, we need to understand the context and requirements clearly. Here are some clarifying questions:

• What are the age groups of the students we are targeting? High school, college, or postgraduates?
• Are we only focusing on the Indian market or do we plan to expand internationally later?
• Are there specific fields or industries we are focusing on, such as technology, arts, business, etc.?
• Do we have any existing platforms to consider or are we building this from scratch?
• Are we considering only online interactions, or do we need to account for offline events as well?

Identify User Persona‍

Considering the wide variety of potential users, we can list down the following user personas:

• High school students exploring career paths.
• College students looking for internships or entry-level jobs.
• Postgraduate students seeking advanced career opportunities.
• Early professionals wanting to network with industry leaders.
• Mid-career professionals looking to mentor and guide the next generation.
• Industry leaders and HR professionals seeking talented individuals.

For the purpose of this exercise, let's prioritize the 'College students looking for internships or entry-level jobs' persona.

Pain Points for the Prioritized User Persona

• Lack of awareness about various career opportunities.
• Limited exposure to real-world industry experience.
• Difficulty in networking with professionals and industry leaders.
• Limited or no access to personalized career guidance.
• Difficulty in finding internships or entry-level jobs that match their interests and skills.

Suggest Solutions for the Pain Points Listed

• Career Awareness: Include features like career exploration, where students can explore various career paths, read about them, and interact with professionals in those fields.
• Industry Experience: Promote live projects, internships, and mentorship programs that give real-world industry experience.
• Networking: Design an easy-to-use interface for networking, including features like direct messaging, group discussions, and Q&A forums.
• Personalized Career Guidance: Incorporate AI-based career guidance which can suggest career paths and opportunities based on user's interests, skills, and experiences.
• Job/Internship Portal: A dedicated section for job and internship postings.

Prioritization of the Solutions

• Networking: This is the core feature of the application, enabling students to connect with professionals.
• Job/Internship Portal: Critical for the utility of the application.
• AI-Based Career Guidance: Unique selling point that would differentiate the app from other platforms.
• Career Awareness: While important, this can be integrated into the networking and guidance features.
• Industry Experience: As the platform grows, partnerships with organizations for internships and live projects could be developed.

Metrics

• User Acquisition: Number of new users over a certain period.
• User Retention: Number of users who continue to use the app after a certain period.
• Daily Active Users (DAU): Number of users who interact with the app daily.
• User Engagement: Measured by features used, time spent on the app, connections made, etc.
• Job/Internship Application Rate: Number of applications made per active user.

Summary‍

We are planning to design a social networking app for connecting students and professionals in India, focusing on career guidance and networking opportunities. We will prioritize college students looking for internships or entry-level jobs. Key pain points include lack of career awareness, limited industry exposure, networking difficulties, lack of personalized career guidance, and difficulty in finding relevant internships or jobs. We will solve these by designing networking features, job/internship portal, AI-based career guidance, and sections for career awareness and industry experience. These features will be prioritized based on their importance and potential for impact. Metrics such as user acquisition, retention, DAU, engagement, and application rate will be tracked to evaluate the success of the app.