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RushLink, an app founded in 2023 by Kinesiology junior Zachary Joelson and Business and Engineering junior Gavin Schwartz aims to give students a space to voice and view others’ opinions about Fraternity & Sorority Life on campus.
Joelson said he and Schwartz came up with the idea for the app as freshmen after going through fraternity recruitment and noticing disorganization in the process.
“It was designed to streamline the recruitment process for student clubs,” Joelson said. “We started by testing it with just social fraternities at University of Michigan. So the the main idea was that you could download this app, make a personal profile with your hometown, your major, things that you would normally come up in conversation when you’re rushing a fraternity, but you’d be able to digitally put yourself in the rush book from this app across all the frats on campus.”
Following their initial launch, Schwartz and Joelson realized the app was only useful for the two-week period in which recruitment occurs. After rush ended, there was a six-month period where there was no use for the app at all. Observing this trend, Schwartz said he and Joelson decided to shift their business model.
“So there was just this six-month dead period in between,” Schwartz said. “We were looking and figuring out ‘How can we create a stickier product where people come back every single day?’”
Joelson said they gathered feedback from peers before their August relaunch to ensure they captured what students wanted in an app.
“We tested (the original app) out, got a lot of good feedback, learned a lot from it and then started building (the new version) based on what people really wanted us to build,” Joelson said.
The app now includes multiple other universities, including Michigan State University and Purdue University. Since relaunching the app, Schwartz and Joelson said they have seen high retention rates, including among their friends who are not involved in Fraternity & Sorority Life.
In an interview with The Daily, Public Policy junior Patrick Szendro Arceo said he uses RushLink to learn what is happening on campus.
“I surprisingly use (the app) because, especially during Welcome Week, I wanted to get more information about what’s going on around campus,” Arceo said. “I also love to see what happens on the app, it’s really funny, even if I don’t know any of the context since I’m not in Greek life.”
The app is completely anonymous and only requires a phone number to sign up, though individuals can still view posts without making an account. The app’s features include the ability to make posts, comment and upvote or downvote posts.
Joelson said the app is focused on helping new U-M students find their community on campus.
“We want to create a balance of being able to feel more connected with other students, but we also want it to be entertaining,” Joelson said. “We also use it as a tool to really be able to see if I’m, let’s say, an incoming freshman and I want to be a part of organizations, I can see what other people think about them.”
Joelson said they are still developing the app and hope to expand beyond FSL to other clubs at the University. According to Joelson, they are also planning to tour about 10 different colleges in the upcoming months to market the app.
“We’re about to go on a tour where we’re going to go to about 10 to 11 different universities over the next few months,” Joelson said. “(We will) host different events at each of those universities and get involved in their Greek life. That’s going to help us be able to start getting our app in the hands of other students, and kind of getting it to other people and other universities.”
Arceo also expressed interest in expanding the app across the University, but voiced concerns about the anonymity aspect if the app were to grow.
“I think the app could potentially become a very good school-wide app, not just for Greek life,” Arceo said. “Although, I do find it a little dangerous to be anonymous because you can post things about other people, and you never know how far people would go.”
In the short term, Schwartz said a personal goal of theirs is to help inspire other college students to find their passion.
“We have found a passion that we can grow over time,” Schwartz said. “The skillset learned from starting a business in college is unbelievable. … We now want to show (other students) that it is possible to scale and grow something in college, whether they pursue that after graduating or (if) it is just a mini personal project.”
Daily Staff Reporter Evy Bisbikis can be reached at bise@umich.edu.
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