U-Turn
Role /
CEO and Project Manager
Skills /
Customer Research
Pitching Skills
Product Development
Timeline /
June 2019-January 2020
Location /
San Francisco, CA
Team /
Hannah Jian
Samhita Gattupalli
Melanie Wu
Ruben Avila
CEO and Project Manager
Skills /
Customer Research
Pitching Skills
Product Development
Timeline /
June 2019-January 2020
Location /
San Francisco, CA
Team /
Hannah Jian
Samhita Gattupalli
Melanie Wu
Ruben Avila
The Challenge
Through research with 150+ high school students across three countries, we found that substance abuse is fueled by an unavoidable party culture where teens often turn to drinking to ease social anxiety or foster fun shared experiences.Many teens feel stuck between attending parties or staying home, as finding and organinizing affordable, accessible, and engaging alternatives is challenging.
The Solution:
U-Turn, a subscription box service offering personalized, pre-organized social events for teens curated to their interests, providing an easy, fun, affordable alternative to the party culture.
U-Turn, a subscription box service offering personalized, pre-organized social events for teens curated to their interests, providing an easy, fun, affordable alternative to the party culture.
- Teens create profiles on the U-Turn website, detailing their interests, modes of transportation, and ideal timing.
- We sort users into categories based on interests using a survey.
- Each box is customized to include event tickets, merchandise, and personalized notes.
Insights + Development:
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1. Hypothesis Testing:
Our team focused on 8 hypotheses and used customers' comments as evidence to verify the accuracy of each hypothesis.
Our team focused on 8 hypotheses and used customers' comments as evidence to verify the accuracy of each hypothesis.
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2. Community>Avoidance Insight:
We found that teens are unlikely to engage with programs that stigmatize substance use. Instead, programs that focus on creating a sense of community and fun social alternatives resonate more strongly.
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2. Community>Avoidance Insight:
We found that teens are unlikely to engage with programs that stigmatize substance use. Instead, programs that focus on creating a sense of community and fun social alternatives resonate more strongly.
Insights + Development:
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3. So, we PIVOTED to social events:
Many teens don’t perceive substance abuse as an issue but feel stuck within party culture. Our focus shifted to offering easy access to curated social events for teens who are not “deemed” as addicts but seek social experiences.
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3. So, we PIVOTED to social events:
Many teens don’t perceive substance abuse as an issue but feel stuck within party culture. Our focus shifted to offering easy access to curated social events for teens who are not “deemed” as addicts but seek social experiences.
- Website: 400+ unique views, 150 user sign-ups, and 10 pre-orders from initial marketing efforts.
- Social Media: Instagram served as our primary platform to connect with teens and market events.
- Demo Day Pitch: Won first place at the Quarter Zero Program’s Demo Day competition, securing funding and recognition as the overall favorite.
- Scaling: Established partnerships with events across multiple cities, expanded from San Francisco to New York markets.
- User-Centric Design: Our initial assumptions about targeting addiction directly were wrong. Customer research revealed the need to focus on positive alternatives rather than prevention messaging.
- Fail Fast, Learn Faster: The concept of "failing fast" was crucial to our success, teaching us to pivot ideas and solutions based on customer feedback. We successfully shifted from a broad anti-addiction platform to a focused event discovery service, better meeting our users' actual needs and desires.
- Market Validation: Rather than creating new events, we found success in curating and packaging existing experiences, solving the discovery and accessibility problems our users faced.
- Teamwork & Collaboration: U-Turn was my first experience with entrepreneurship, and it taught me the importance of leveraging a team’s strengths to create a solution greater than the sum of its parts.