By Cole Albert, news correspondent
Two Northeastern students designed an app called FriendsUp, which allows people to add a friend on all of their social media platforms with a single tap.
The app, created by fourth-year Andrew Smith and fifth-year Jay Shome, allows a person to send requests to another person’s Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram by scanning a QR code, as well as adding that person’s phone number into their contacts. Smith and Shome, both computer science majors, said making new friends in an unfamiliar place is hard enough, and with FriendsUp, that process can become a little bit easier.
“We think meeting as many people as possible [is] how you enrich your life,” Smith said.
Shome said streamlining the search process saves people a lot of time and encourages potential friendships.
“Say we met today for the first time,” Shome said. “If I didn’t add you somewhere, we might not ever hear from each other again … but if we see each other in news feeds every now and then, we might stay in touch.”
The two became close friends after joining Beta Theta Pi, and have gotten to know each other while taking the same computer science classes.
“Through our major, we learned a good amount of programming,” Shome said. “But we did have to learn a lot on our own.”
Smith and Shome worked together to code the entire app, and each of them brought something different to the table.
“We can give credit where credit’s due, Jay [Shome] came up with the idea,” Smith said.
However, it was Smith who first developed an entrepreneurial drive, wanting to create an app that linked different platforms and applications together. By the time Shome came to him with the idea for the QR code and the specific apps to connect, he was well-prepared to take the initiative.
Through Northeastern’s co-op program, the duo gained experience that was useful in getting their project off the ground. Smith mastered a programming language called React, which he learned while on a software engineering co-op at America’s Test Kitchen. React is geared toward speed and building user interfaces, and Smith said its scalability made it the perfect choice to use to develop a new app.
During Shome’s co-ops, one at John Hancock and the other at Boston Consulting Group, he learned the ins and outs of growing and running a company.
“Both places gave me leadership skills,” Shome said. “[They] helped me learn how to put myself in the users’ shoes, and understand what they would want to see in a product.”
Smith said the next phase of their business venture is about gaining brand recognition.
“The most obvious roadblock now is how do we get this thing on fire, how do we get it spreading,” Smith said. “We’re trying to increase development right now, as well as get our names out there as efficiently as possible.”
Although he could not go into the details, Smith said they will be rolling out an updated version in the near future and hoped to get their name out to as many people as possible before that happens.
Shome went on to say their promotion is extending to college campuses nationwide.
“We’re actively gathering more brand ambassadors to help us and become part of the team,” Shome said, citing Red Bull’s model for recruiting ambassadors as a prime example of how successful this tactic can be.
While the idea for FriendsUp came from Smith and Shome, they credit a Northeastern alumnus, Oleg Vaskevich, as an essential part of its creation. Vaskevich, a computer science major who graduated last year, had moved to California a few months prior to work on a startup of his own. When they reached out for help, he was more than willing to offer some expertise, recommending that the pair use React to program the app and helping them build the foundation.
“Around this time last year, Jay [Shome] asked me if I had time to help bring his idea — of what’s now FriendsUp — to life,” Vaskevich said. “I’m super excited to see how far they’ve come with handling all the parts of a nascent product release, and eager to see what’s to come.”
