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Ryan Hoover

Islands - Slack for College 🌴

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Islands connects you with people, places and communities you care about at your college. Finding your people is a core, primal need and unlocks human potential.

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Ryan Hoover
Hunter
Greg's been quiet about Islands in the tech community until recently. For the past ~year he's been traveling to universities around the country, hanging out on college campuses to learn from and intro the app to his target demo (more in @kerrymflynn's Mashable piece). What's been the biggest surprise or most interesting learning during this time, @gregisenberg?
Niv Dror
@rrhoover +1 awesome article from @kerrymflynn 💯👌 Makes so much sense living on a college campus for a ~year when building something like this. From a community standpoint – I personally believe you cannot spend "too much" money on shirts/stickers things like that, especially in the early days, when building your community, promoting the brand, and rewarding early users of the platform (and making them feel like part of the team). So, I love that @gregisenberg took this to the next level and... 1) Actually went back to college to see what the user need is (Image caption: “Severely stoked to be back at college” 😂) 2) Created an entire clothing line around Islands 🌴 (designed by Skrillex's fashion brand Owsl)
Greg Isenberg
Maker
Hey you 😍, Im the Founder/CEO at Islands & beyond excited to be here. Since I've been a kid, I've always been really excited about bringing people together. Islands is about bringing all sorts of groups of people at college together from the LGBT community to party people to fraternities to classrooms. Think of Islands a way to unlock all sorts of different group chats (we call them Islands) in your area. College is the single greatest time for self-discovery, yet it's actually pretty hard to find your people, places and communities that matter to you. Enter Islands 🌴. Islands is only live on select campuses. Those include University of Florida, University of South Carolina, University of Western Ontario etc. I’m here to answer any questions/thoughts/feedback you might have about the product/space.
braxton
@gregisenberg wow this is brilliant! Exactly what I’ve been looking for regarding college. I can’t wait to try it out when my college is added! Need any campus reps or is there a way to get a shirt?
Sebastian Orozco
@gregisenberg @3raxton Yo can I get one of those sick shirts too?
Greg Isenberg
Maker
Sneha Sharma
@gregisenberg interest-based networking is the future and I love how Islands is able to capture the need of hour. I can’t wait for it to go global! All the best to you and your team 😄
Andrew-David
Why? Hey, here's an idea: You need a "Slack for X?" Easy! All you have to do is make an actual Slack account and then use it for X.
Stephen
@andrewdavidj all you have to do is look at the branding of each. Islands will be way more intriguing to your average college student
caleb
@andrewdavidj One of my professors once suggested our class use Slack, needles to say the class stuck to a lame WhatsApp group. If there were any option more targeted for students that would be amazing and hopefully start ridding my phone of pointless WhatsApp groups ☺️
Emmanuel Darmon
I strongly believe that students deserve their own social network, each campus their own small island 🏝 Good job @gregisenberg 👏
Greg Isenberg
Maker
Merci Emmanuel!
Rick G
@gregisenberg @emmanueldarmon this is facebook when I joined back in college when it was only for college kids but obviously with it's own relevant style for todays students. Mad respect.
Tristan Pollock
IT'S FINALLY HERE!
Erik Torenberg
Congrats on the launch, sir! You and team have been crafting, tinkering, perfecting for a while. How do you know when a product is ready to launch? From your tests, what KPIs were you most focused on?
Pawel Janiak
It's impossible to understand what this is from the landing page. Why not include some kind of about page?
Greg Isenberg
Maker
The people who know, know (at the campuses we're at)
Anne Gherini
Congrats Greg! Great concept. Slack for College Campuses.
Greg Isenberg
Maker
TYSM!
Anne Gherini
@gregisenberg I'll get you wrapped into an Inc or HuffPo article.
Greg Isenberg
Maker
Wow, thank you! LMK what you need from me
Sven van der Zee
It looks great, nice playful design! Great landing page btw. Keep it up!
Jeremy Bauer
That landing page is 🔥 🏝️
Greg Isenberg
Maker
Thanks for the kind words!
Jamie Finn
TBH I wish slack was this useful. Hopefully it remembers who you were chatting with most recently as opposed to selecting a random list of people.
Andrew-David
@finnstr ??? Um, what? Slack actually does show your most recent chats at the top of the "Direct Messages" list. What are you talking about?
Keyul
Congrats Greg on launch. Come across the local startup that has a very similar concept for college students. It would be great to see which one grow faster. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/...
Alexandre Mouriec
I was able to try Islands several months ago and it was a really cool experience 👍 Even if it was not on my campus, I saw the potential of using it on my campus and I hope it will be live in France one day 🙏 I also like the fact that @gregisenberg went back to college for Islands 👏
Jevon
Nice to see the launch @gregisenberg !
Greg Isenberg
Maker
Thanks Jevon! Love to catch up sometime!
Jordan Sztern
Great stuff. No doubt this will be a huge success
Greg Isenberg
Maker
Merci
Nick Horsthuis
Great to see my 'islands' (Isle of Man) .im domain TLD put to good use! Any plans for the UK? @gregisenberg @findyourislands
Greg Isenberg
Maker
We love the UK! We've had a bunch of UK universities reach out to us (Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Essex) and are looking into it!
Alain Lagrecque
Was wondering when this would launch, good job 🚀 Just read the Inc piece, @gregisenberg bet you're hating all the college market research.
Aziz Morsly
Congrats @gregisenberg on the launch on PH - great product that will see fast adoption even in Europe.
David Kampmann
I am curious about the rollout, because I am at a university, and it is not available here.
Philippe Gauvin
Go Greg! You're doing it right, once again.