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As a middle schooler at Taipei American School in Taipei, Taiwan, Alex Don recognized self-esteem issues arising among his peers and himself due to trying to create “idealized images” for social media.

The Syracuse University junior, who is double-majoring in marketing and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, wants to create a social media app that removes the pressure of always looking perfect. He hopes to accomplish this through his startup, CIRUS, a social media app that lets users share audio content lasting up to 90 seconds.

“The best way to show your true self is through your voice rather than creating an idealized self-image,” Don said.

In January 2021, Don began work on CIRUS. To better understand CIRUS’ market, he asked friends and other people questions that would help him recognize the problem he wanted to solve.

Figuring out his target audience and how often it uses social media allowed Don to begin crafting an app best suited for them. He wanted to figure out which social media apps they used the most, how often they posted on their social media pages and which metrics, such as followers and likes, they followed the most.

“Entrepreneurship is all about solving a problem,” Don said. “If there is no problem, then you are basically just a business.”

After Don realized that he wanted to pursue the audio-based social media idea, he started recruiting talent that could help him create the company. But that wasn’t easy to do. Don said he realized that he needed to find “people passionate about this idea like him,” so he made a job post on LinkedIn titled “CIRUS Software Engineer + Co-Founder.”

“First day, there were over 100 applicants,” Don said. “I realized I made a mistake because everyone applying was much older than me and were looking for real jobs and getting paid.”

He then posted a new job listing, “CIRUS Software Engineer Intern,” which attracted college-aged students and allowed him to find the software engineers who are now working for CIRUS.

Daria Derkach, a software engineering manager at Western Digital, is a mentor for CIRUS and leads the software development team. Derkach and Don met this year through Y Combinator, an American seed money startup accelerator.

As a busy parent, Derkach is tired of being dependent on visuals for all social media apps, she said.

“Since the very beginning, I fell in love with the idea,” Derkach said. “I can go for a walk, grab the stroller with my kids and don’t have to get distracted by being on my phone to engage with content.”

Different from the invitation-only social media audio app Clubhouse, CIRUS will offer consistently available content instead of audio that can only be heard live. Don believes this will make the app more inclusive of marginalized communities, including people who are blind.

CIRUS users will be able to share their thoughts, start conversations, sing or play music, as well as post in an audio-based comment section. There will also be the option to use voice filters so that users can alter their voice. Don wanted users to feel comfortable sharing original messages on the app without being judged.

“The message you’re sharing would still be yours, which is important,” Don said. “Being able to share your ideas without being judged.”

Luka Nikabadze, a senior majoring in computer science at Brooklyn College, is one of the software engineers at CIRUS. Nikabadze said that in the future, users will be able to create customizable emojis that will imitate emotions like happiness or sadness once they have recorded their voice.

The next steps for CIRUS are to develop a minimum viable product — in this case, an app with enough features to attract early-adopter users. The CIRUS team is in the process of developing the app, and it will go through two rounds of testing before they release the app for users to download and use.

The app has already garnered funding interest from venture capitalists, and Don is excited about the future for CIRUS and his team, he said.

“Everyone in the team understands their role in the team, and everyone on that team has the same goal of winning the championship,” Don said. “We’re at the stage where we think we can win a championship. And we all have to put in the hours and be a team.”

Published on May 13, 2021 at 1:01 am