Every TED Talk you’ve forced yourself to sit through agrees: Networking is important. Especially in a city like New York, it’s all about who you know. You’ve got to find some way to make some personal connections, or else your resume is bound to end up buried under used K-Cups in some HR trashcan. Even if you’re comfortable in your current role, it’s still good to meet folks at other startups around the city and learn about what else is happening in your field. You didn’t move to a city of 8 million people to meet no one new.
Enter Shapr, a new app that’s revolutionizing the way we network. The folks at Shapr brilliantly picked up on the parallels between looking for professional opportunities and looking for love, and they created an app that adapts some of the most successful and familiar features from today’s popular dating apps. However, instead of swiping for dates, you’re swiping for interesting people to meet for professional collaborations, meaningful conversations and industry friendships. It’s a mindful way to meet people in your city that allows even those in relationships to start swiping.
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Users create a Shapr profile, and a complex algorithm matches them with other professionals based on their location, job experience and self-selected interests. There are more than 60,000 users in the New York City area already, which is a lot of potentially interesting people to meet. Each day, you’re presented with a handful of potential matches, and you get to anonymously browse each profile, swiping right for the people you’d like to meet.
You’re only notified if there’s a mutual match. Not only does this mean you can avoid the heartache of professional rejection, but it means you spend a lot less time stuck in an awkward conversation with people at events. Use Shapr to build a daily networking habit while at the bar, on the toilet, waiting for the G train, wherever! It makes networking an easy thing to integrate into your typical daily routine, along with brushing your teeth, grabbing your morning bodega coffee or narrowly missing the B63 bus.
Download Shapr right now and try to make your first professional match!