Elva Update: what we’ve accomplished so far and what’s next
I'd like to look back on the month of April and take the time to see what we were able to accomplish in the Elva project.
For those who might not have been following, Elva is a new messaging application I'm developing with Victor Collot and Arthur Desmazures. Elva helps anyone to organize things (let's call it "events", but it can be anything from a party to a tennis game with a buddy).
Why Elva?
Elva can be described as a new kind of social network designed to connect groups of friends and help them organize meetings. Elva provides an innovative solution to the problem of organizing events and activities among friends, which can often be a time-consuming and frustrating process.
With Elva, users can easily create groups of friends and organize events for them. The app looks like a messaging app, but it includes features that allow users to ask questions and understand the conversation. Elva is able to ask "Who's free Friday night?" or "Where should we go for brunch?". This makes it easier to coordinate schedules and preferences, ensuring everyone is on the same page before making plans.
One of the main benefits of Elva is event planning. Instead of sending multiple messages trying to find the best time and place to meet, users can simply use the app to coordinate their plans. This saves time and reduces the frustration that often accompanies event planning.
Another advantage of Elva is that it is designed specifically for groups of friends. Unlike other social networks, which are often focused on connecting strangers, Elva aims to connect people who already know and trust each other. This creates a more intimate and comfortable environment, where users can share ideas and make plans without feeling self-conscious.
Overall, Elva is an innovative social network that solves a common problem for many people: organizing events with friends. By making it easy to coordinate schedules and preferences, Elva simplifies planning and allows users to focus on enjoying time with their friends. Whether it's a casual brunch or a night on the town, Elva makes the planning process easy.
eMerge & Tight Schedule
I received an email, around mid-January, about a Pitch competition organized by Florida Polytechnic University. At that time, we had no project, no idea what we wanted to do, not even a name. Just a problem we wanted to solve: how to organize something without making it complicated?
But I knew that this opportunity would not come again for a long time, so I decided to sign up, without even having a startup. Fake it until you make it as they say!
In two weeks, I had to, with Arthur & Victor who were not on the same continent, design the solution we were going to present. And the next two weeks, I had to design a pitch deck that would make me win this competition. In the end we didn't do so bad!
Winning this competition allowed us to go to eMerge Americas 2023. We had to refine our solution, our pitch deck, and even design a prototype in 1 month! In short, it was a huge challenge for us, but we made it.
We had the chance to pitch at eMerge, and we had our own booth, which generated a lot of interest from the conference attendees.
In less than 3 months, we were able to start a project that interested about 2000 people in Europe and the United States, without any advertising.
May to June: Building & Networking
Coming back from Miami, we spent a considerable amount of time talking to most of the people we had met at the conference. On top of that, we are all three students and it was a pretty stressful time with final exams, preparing my move to California, and most of all our hard work to develop a first version of Elva.
And we will continue to work all summer to be able to launch the app as soon as possible. We have already made considerable progress but there is still a long way to go. I'm lucky enough to have met some very talented developers in Paris for an internship, which has nothing to do with Elva, but which is an ultra enriching experience and will definitely help me in the future of the project (thanks to PyratzLabs, a web3 incubator, with whom I will be able to work to enrich the DeFi ecosystem).
We would like to go faster, of course, because we now know how much interest there is in Elva. For us, it's the number one priority. It's very difficult to go faster at the moment (since we are not funded, and therefore we have to continue our studies while waiting to raise funds).
So, what’s next?
As I explained the next step is to launch the app. We are confident that having a product available will undoubtedly allow us to better understand and promote our vision.
Our next priority will be to launch and get our first users. We absolutely need to grow as a project and company to achieve our goals. That's why we're looking for partners who will be able to help us, advise us in this new adventure, as well as provide the necessary liquidity to ensure that Elva not only provides a solution to a few students who had the good idea to use our service, but can help hundreds of millions of people to have a better social life. We want the new generation to take back control of their social life.
There is so much more with Elva that we are still exploring, and we’d love to hear what you think about it. Shoot us an email, we love to talk to customers, or come see us at VivaTech in Paris this June!