The challenge faced by Recoverlution was the disruption of in-person meetings for addiction recovery due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This posed a significant problem as the recovery process is heavily reliant on connection and support from others. The founders, Daniel Fincham, Jacob Midtgaard-Olesen, and Edward Williams, having experienced the fragmented recovery services themselves, were motivated to revolutionize the way the recovery community could support each other in a digital environment. They identified a gap in the market for a dedicated online space where people in recovery could connect, share experiences, and support each other.

Run The World, a fast-growing virtual event platform, faced a significant challenge as it expanded its user base. The platform needed a robust, scalable chat solution that could support its exponential growth and keep its community engaged. The existing in-platform chat solution, built on top of a third-party chat provider’s technology, was not up to the task. It lacked the sleek messaging experience of popular apps like Facebook Messenger, Slack, and WhatsApp. As the company rapidly added users and started hosting larger events, it became clear that a chat API solution with a flexible pricing structure was needed to support their rapid scale. Additionally, Run The World needed more sophisticated live chat features such as thread replies and message reactions to meet the high expectations of their tech-savvy users. The platform also needed to add a direct messaging capability to facilitate the rich 1:1 conversations that naturally occur at in-person venues.

Sketchfab, a platform for 3D artists, designers, architects, engineers, and more, was facing challenges with its custom-built feeds due to rapid growth. The company had been relying on its own infrastructure, including a PostgreSQL database and Redis cache, to support these feeds. However, as user activity increased, it became increasingly time-consuming to scan and retrieve relevant activities for individual users. Sketchfab realized that their in-house solution would not scale indefinitely and that adding and maintaining more infrastructure to fix the problem was not a viable option. They needed a solution that could handle their growing needs without compromising on performance and reliability.

Sportlobster, the leading online sports community, was facing a significant challenge as it grew. The platform, which allows sports fans to engage in discussions, stay updated with personalized news, live scores, and predict results, was initially built on an in-house solution. However, as the user base expanded, the company started encountering limitations at scale. The in-house solution was unable to handle the increasing volume of feed updates, which was crucial for maintaining user engagement and providing a seamless experience. The challenge was to find a solution that could safely scale to billions of feed updates without compromising on speed or reliability.

Student+ is an Edinburgh-based edtech app that aims to connect university students virtually before they arrive at school. The app heavily relies on in-app messaging for its functionality. Initially, the team behind Student+ decided to buy a chat service instead of building one from scratch, considering the time, cost, and complexity involved in the latter. They initially opted for a third-party chat provider. However, six months after the launch of Student+, the third-party chat provider announced the discontinuation of its chat service, giving only a week to export all data. This posed a significant challenge for Student+, as the entire functionality of the app was built around this chat service. The sudden discontinuation threatened the existence of the app and forced the team to look for other chat options.

TaskRabbit, an online and mobile task platform, faced a significant challenge with its in-house chat service. The chat service, which is a core functionality of the platform, was underperforming, unreliable, and often experienced lags between when a message was sent and received. This led to frequent miscommunications between users and taskers. TaskRabbit considered rewriting the chat service internally, but they wanted to focus their resources on enhancing the platform's core competencies. They decided to bring in a third-party to integrate a top-notch chat product into their application. TaskRabbit also wanted to incorporate new features into their chat product, such as multi-party groups, gestures, media calls, forms, reactions, and threading. They needed a solution that was scalable, timely, and high-performing.

The gaming industry, despite being a popular entertainment medium, is heavily male-dominated, often leading to women feeling alienated and subjected to toxic comments. The*gameHERS, a new app, was created to provide a safe and inclusive space for women and femme-identifying gamers. However, the app required in-app chat and activity feed functionality to power this niche community and enhance the user experience. The co-founders of the*gameHERS needed a solution that could seamlessly integrate with their app and provide a user-friendly interface for their community members. The challenge was to find a reliable and efficient solution that could cater to their specific needs and help them achieve their mission of amplifying the role, voice, image, and power of women and femme-identifying gamers.

Undivided, a support system and app for families raising children with disabilities, faced a significant challenge in facilitating communication between parents and their Navigators. The company sought to create an engaging, reliable, and easy-to-maintain communication solution that would feel natural for the end user. Initially, Undivided integrated a Zendesk ticketing system, which primarily facilitated communication through email. However, this approach proved to be inefficient as managing inboxes became a daunting task. The company then attempted to build a system using their CRM's messages API, but this too fell short of expectations. The CRM-specific internal portal did not meet the Navigators' needs, and the system could not be integrated with Undivided's existing tools and systems.