Like other college students, Phil Xiao and Jiatao Cheng worried about networking, making alumni connections and finding jobs after graduation. But unlike their fellow stressed seniors at Carleton College, the two created a business, built an app and hit the road in an old food truck in search of a solution.
Over the last two years, this idea evolved into Homi, a digital platform that helps students build mentor-mentee relationships. Homi is free for colleges, students and alumni to use. Alums can join the site to connect with current students, share advice and help them connect to other professionals in their field.
According to Xiao, Homi is now being used at 15 colleges and has "a couple thousand" users. He added that they were inspired to create the platform after their own difficulty with networking and job hunting.
"Career centers aren't all that effective," Cheng said. "The staff there don't necessarily know what's best for students who want to pursue a specific path. Those students need to talk to someone who's been down that road."
Carleton, like many other colleges, Cheng explained, has a digital directory where students can find alumni contact information. The problem is that it's not always up to date, and students aren't sure if the alum is looking to mentor anyone. Having mentors sign up for Homi, he said, ensures that they're looking to help out job or internship- seeking college students.
The Homi team spent the greater portion of their senior year working on this idea. After graduating, Xiao, Cheng and other members of the Homi team received a small amount of funding from a Carleton alum, allowing them to continue their project. They moved into their new "office," a house in Uptown they nicknamed Homi HQ.
In addition to founding a company together, the housemates had another common passion: food. After graduation, Xiao traveled around China, where he learned to cook from local hole-in-the-wall chefs. Cheng's family owned a restaurant, and he grew up learning the business.
"We all enjoyed cooking for one another, and one day we thought, 'Wouldn't it be funny if we started a food truck?'" Cheng said.
What started as a passing remark eventually morphed into a business plan. The team bought and refurbished an old food truck, and began driving it to college campuses around the state.
They serve Asian-infusion foods like fried rice and spring rolls. And it's always free. The idea, they said, is to encourage attendance at networking events and get people talking. Homi hosted its first food truck event in April, and has catered local meet-ups and company events during the summer. Recently, they hired a chef to manage the operation full-time.
Unsurprisingly, their free food on college campus idea has been well received.
