Violet Alumni Spotlight: Christy Chen, Co-Creator of vera.zone

Christy is currently working on a side project called vera.zone to connect people in the time of Coronavirus. She is an alum of The Violet Society’s Founder Fellowship Cohort 4, in Fall 2019.

What is your background?

Last year, I graduated from UC Berkeley with a Masters of Engineering in Operations Research with a focus on Data Science. Before that, I interned at McKinsey and Mentors Fund.

During grad school, I realized that recruiting is not meritocratic. Talented people with unconventional backgrounds get screened out of the interview process. I wanted to democratize opportunities for these people and help workplaces make more holistic hiring decisions.

To solve this problem, I decided to start an HR Tech startup called VisTalent, incubated at Berkeley SkyDeck (UC Berkeley’s official startup accelerator). We built software to transcribe job interviews and won verbal buy-ins from corporations to test out our beta.

Why are you interested in diversity, inclusion, and human connection?

I have always been interested in connecting people authentically and helping them understand each other beyond a surface level. We learn so much from each other, especially from people with different backgrounds and viewpoints. However, it is not necessarily natural to connect with people who are not similar to us.

When I started my freshman year of college, I noticed in the cafeteria that students mostly sat with others who shared their race and ethnicity. I wanted to help more people break out of their comfort zone and meet people who had different backgrounds.

During my undergraduate program, I was a student representative on the President’s Commission on Diversity and worked with the Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness & Inclusivity. We discussed the natural tendency towards sameness and created initiatives to promote cross-cultural communication, including our most successful — “International Education Week” where we organized a costume day, international food events, and more. I have been thinking about this problem for a while.

How did you start vera.zone & what problem do you hope to solve?

At the time of the pandemic, my friend Alice Zhou (from The Violet Society’s 2nd Product Management Fellowship in Fall 2019) shared her pain points with me and talked about how inefficient dating apps are. We began to brainstorm ideas together and realized that we both miss the serendipity of clicking with someone new.

We built a vetted platform called vera.zone together. To roll out our MVP as quickly as possible, we used Carrd to build the website. We found the no-code tool to be effective and met most of our needs.

How vera.zone works: People get curated 1:1 matches and grab virtual coffees over video calls. We match people based on their values, interests, and background. To facilitate authentic connections, we share matches’ common values and interests with each other before the meetings.

We are still testing out the purpose of these connections, but based on user feedback, there is a strong interest in romantic connections. I was hesitant to build a dating website at the beginning, but after I joined a curated event organized by The Grand called “Love in the Time of Coronavirus”, I realized how important it is to openly discuss our feelings and desires for love. I learned from our users that this need is precious.

We are running our first round this week and we are excited to hear from our users about their fun moments with their matches!

How did The Violet Society Fellowship help you launch this project?

During The Violet Society Founder Fellowship, I found the fireside chats with experienced founders particularly helpful, to learn more about which obstacles I may face in the future. One that stuck in my memory was from Madeline Lauf, who described her founding journey very candidly.

I also met Alice, who’s currently an Associate Product Manager at Visa, during a Violet Fellows Brunch. She was in the Violet Product Fellowship and I was in the Violet Founder Fellowship. We shared similar passions and became friends. We knew each other inside and outside of The Violet Society, and we decide to work on a side project together.

How do you think about your career path?

I believe in a philosophy that was written in the book What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: “Planning a career should be like traveling in a foreign country. Even if you prepare carefully, have an itinerary and a place to stay at night, the most interesting experiences usually aren’t planned. You might end up meeting a fascinating person who shows you places that aren’t in the guidebook, or you might miss your train and end up spending the day exploring a small town you hadn’t planned to visit.”

I constantly test out new possibilities; in my sophomore year, I was exploring consulting and took on an internship to get experience. It wasn’t the best fit, so the next year I did an informational interview with a successful startup founder who was an alum of my college, met one of their investors, and took summer courses at Stanford to learn tech entrepreneurship and data science.

At the same time, I look at my past and ask myself honestly what I enjoy doing and what my passions are. I enjoy connecting with people beyond the superficial level. I am excited to help people connect with each other meaningfully and authentically (you can read more about my thoughts on it in this blog post). I believe that my personal purpose is work in progress.

vera.zone helps you build authentic connections in real-time through curated 1:1 matching. Get early access here!

Applications are now open for The Violet Society’s Summer 2020 Founder Fellowship program (Applications Close Friday, May 15, 11:59 pm PST). Join our first remote-only program for a community of female & non-binary founders, mentorship from experienced leaders, accountability to your growth goals, and more. Email us with questions at info@thevioletsociety.com