A community for new grads in NYC.
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Kat Manalac

Trolley - A community for new grads in New York City

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Trolley is a community for new grads moving to New York City. Make new friends, access exclusive neighborhood events, and FaceTime our team of locals for #adulting help. Settling into a new city is hard -- we're here to make it a little easier.

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Jesse Chand
Maker
Hey Product Hunt! I'm Jesse, one of the makers of Trolley. Our mission is to become the center of community for young professionals in cities. Our team met in college through building communities together, and we've been inspired by them ever since: their capacity to bring people together, to motivate, and to elevate quality of life. While communities were everywhere in college, we've found that post-grad (in the "real world") it can feel much harder to find your place. It's quite common today for people to jump into a new city for work without really knowing anyone at all beforehand — and outside the structure of college, it can be really tough to just feel connected again. Nearly half of Americans today feel lonely some or most of the time. We built Trolley to make this experience easier. We're starting with recent grads moving to New York City — featuring an online community, events for members, and access to FaceTime with our team of locals for #adulting help. Moving forward, we're excited to expand to other cities and use physical spaces to bring people together. I’m so stoked to hear what you think! If you or a friend are graduating and moving to NYC, we’d love to hear more about how we can help. And if you can relate to us but you're in another part of the world — we'd love to hear from you too! Cheers, Jesse
Abadesi
@jessechand Neat idea! I'm curious to hear about how you will support community members as they face some of the common struggles of bring a young professional: anxiety, stress, money worries etc. Is that where your team of locals step in with resources and advice?
Snigdha Sur
@jessechand What a great idea! I was the social chair for my business analyst group back in the day when I was in consulting and I remember how important it was to build that social fabric and build out events, especially amid the stresses of your first job life! As folks who are building out community right now through our own product, we at The Juggernaut are finding that it's so important to have those networks for support, and also get outside of your bubble, too.
Jesse Chand
Maker
Hey @abadesi — that’s a fantastic question! Yes — we think of our team of locals as your “big siblings” in the city. They’re available for a video chat to help answer any questions that come up in your transition to the “real world”: from personal finance and renting apartments, to general logistics and recommendations. We believe that belonging to a tight-knit community is one of the most important factors to your mental health, so we're also putting a big focus on in-person meetups and events!
Cherrie Wang
Super exciting concept! Wondering if you plan on monetizing, or if you plan on keeping access to the community for free? I saw the upcoming Clubhouse service on your website, how is that related to the current Slack product?
Calvin LeGassick
Maker
@cher_wang we're definitely planning on building a business! the first step to that is providing an incredible value for our community members. the clubhouse is one of our first ideas for monetization, but we're excited to see where we can provide the most value and what we can build that's worth paying for.
Ben Stanfield
@jessechand This is really promising! Thinking about a move to NY in the near future and top priority is office space. When do you think the clubhouse will be available in Manhattan? And secondly, will there be office space available in the clubhouse like WeWork or is it just a social space? Keep up the good work!
Jesse Chand
Maker
@ben_stanfield Thanks Ben! We're hoping to have the Clubhouse ready later this summer, and we're really stoked about it! Definitely hoping to have a more social atmosphere than WeWork, but wouldn't rule out the option to be able to get some work done there too :)
Justin Duan

Can't wait to see how this evolves into the next big thing for urban millennials!

Pros:

Solving a real problem - starting a new life in a new city. Making new friends is 1 of the biggest challenges for those in their early 20s.

Cons:

Don't see any yet

Mike Mahlkow

Excited to see how this plays out

Pros:

Sounds like a great idea! Many of my friends are struggling when they move into new cities.

Cons:

I cannot think of anything that currently solves this problem sufficiently

Sarah McBride

I wrote about just *how* difficult it is to move to this city as a new grad so if you're interested, you can read all the gory details here: https://medium.com/@SarahMcBride...

Pros:

As a foreign import to NYC, this is endlessly useful. So many basic things in this city hinge on having connections.

Cons:

I'm looking forward to seeing how the team bridge the experience from online to IRL meet-ups and mixers.

Adena Bauer
Maker
Thank you so much for this response (and I LOVE your medium article!!). I relate with many of the problems you listed about new york, especially the part on "Spending time with humans." Im so excited that Trolley can help.
Jesse Chand
Maker
Thanks for your review @sararahmcb ! Loved your article on NYC and I can definitely relate!
Teresa Liu
Hey! Really awesome idea! As a rising senior at USC, finding communities beyond college is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. What's the vision for the clubhouse, and what would so enticing about it to get me to pay the monthly fee? Also, I generally don't know too much about current options for new grad communities - do you know of any competitors out there or existing communities similar to your product? Can't wait to see where you guys go! :)
Adena Bauer
Maker
@teresaliu20 Thanks, Teresa! We're hoping the Clubhouse would be a space for recent graduates to hang out in the evenings, attend social events, and even work if they want. It's difficult making friends in a new city when there aren't consistent ways to reengage with your community –– we want to make this 100x easier. There aren't very many comparisons - maybe a recreation center or co-working space - but with a focus on social experiences for young professionals.
Calvin LeGassick
Maker
@teresaliu20 @adena_bauer1 Also, I think people *do* create solutions to find their community. But it can be really hard and take a lot of time! In college the opportunities to meet people and connect are abundant –– once everyone is "off to work" post-grad it takes a lot of intentionality around "getting out there" to have even some of those interactions after hours. And there's so many more tempting ways to spend time that are kind of isolating... Netflix makes infinite entertainment a click away and there's tons of studies showing the ways in which our ubiquitous digital connection is actually deepening our collective sense of loneliness (if we really needed the studies to spell that out in the first place). So I think part of the clubhouse is trying to figure out how can we reduce the "friction" to being in community spaces? Which is something college does really well!
Zoe Bauer

looking forward to more people joining!

Pros:

Already a member! very excited to meet other recent nyc transplants

Cons:

so far, so good! it seems members are self-selective and will take advantage of Trolley by interacting on slack and attending events

Denis Shershnev
Awesome @jessechand ! You've done great work!
Jesse Chand
Maker
@eulerr Thanks so much Denis!
Mimi Tran Zambetti
Looks sweet! I loved NYC when I visited and see myself living there postgrad, but was definitely overwhelmed thinking about how I'd find a community when I got there — I'll be sure to check this out soon. What kind of events are you putting together?
Calvin LeGassick
Maker
@mims_tz Trolley is very much a response to that sense of overwhelm! In terms of the events, everyone has the opportunity to go to the "kickoff" events we do every couple weeks as people roll into the city. And soon we'll start hosting frequent activities, everything from picnics in the park to basic mixology classes!
Veronika Riederle

great initiative, excited to see how this is evolving

Pros:

this is really exciting! i hope to see them expand to more cities

Cons:

nothing so far

Melissa Fletcher

Finding friends and networking in a new, big city is right at my fingertips!

Pros:

So easy to connect with people in the same stage of life that I’m in now!

Cons:

Absolutely nothing.

Yury Lifshits
I wish I had this 12 years ago when I first moved to US! Congrats team! What's #1 topic? Housing? Dating?
Calvin LeGassick
Maker
@yurylifshits It's still a young community but a lot of people that have joined the community are looking for housing and people are definitely filling out our roommate matching survey. Now that more people are actually starting to move here after graduating I think events & hangouts are going to pick up a lot in the next couple weeks as well!
Arjun Patel
Wish I had this as a recent grad!!
Mildred Alex
Very cool comunity
Jesse Chand
Maker
Thank you, @mildredalex4 !
Lester Lee
Definitely could have used this when I moved to LA after college.
Sydney Liu
woohoo! congrats on the launch guys!! looks awesome. master community builders building another community :) what are your expansion plans?
Leo Vogel
Interested but live in San Diego. Please post again when you open up to other cities.
Tim Yu
Awesome team that moves super fast! Wish this was here 4 years ago; it solves real pain points. Can’t wait to watch you guys blow up!
Irfan Faizullabhoy
Awesome!! Part of what makes a community great is how it cultivates a special culture, set of values, and identity. It’ll be interesting to see how this product navigates the question of “does one size fit all?” for new-grad metropolitan communities.