Nothing Here Is Built Yet
Everything below is a proposal, not a commitment — the point of this page is to give us a shared list to prioritise from on our next call, not to lock anything in.
The Headline Idea
Biggest opportunity"Who should I talk to?" — a real search over the whole directory
Instead of browsing or filtering, a member types a plain question — "who's raising a seed round in fintech," "who can help with a US visa" — and gets back real people, ranked by relevance, not just a keyword match.
Why this is the natural next step, not a new direction: the database was deliberately built on Postgres with a feature called pgvector from day one, specifically to leave room for this. And the "About," "Looking for help with," and "Happy to help GBxers with" fields already added to every profile exist for exactly this reason — they're the raw material a search like this reads from.
In plain terms: most of the groundwork is already sitting there, unused. This isn't starting from zero.
It could also start chipping away at the WhatsApp group's role as the default place people ask "does anyone know someone who...?" — the group works, but it's ephemeral and nothing in it is searchable later. A "who should I talk to" box in the app is the same instinct, done in a way that's discoverable and doesn't rely on the right person happening to see the message at the right moment.
Events, Extended
Confirmed feasibleSee who's going, before you go
Right now an event page shows the event itself — date, location, a link to register on Luma. The idea: also show which GBx members are already attending, with a way to message them directly, before the event even happens.
Decided so far, from talking it through:
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Always visibleDecided
No privacy toggle for now — attendance is shown the same way a directory profile already is, not something a member can hide. Simpler, and nothing else in the app currently works the other way.
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Small photos on the events list too, not just the event pageDecided
A quick visual signal across the whole events list of which upcoming events your network is already going to — not just discoverable one event at a time.
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Message, not a new featureDecided
Reuses the messaging system that already exists end to end — a "Message" button next to each attendee, nothing new to build for the conversation itself.
Luma's API already has an endpoint for exactly this — the list of approved guests for an event, with name and email — on the same access level already used for the existing event sync. No new agreement with Luma needed to build this.
Also On The Table
Other directions worth weighing up
Less developed than the two above — flagged here so nothing discussed gets lost, not fully scoped yet.
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Group messagingIdea
Messaging today is one-to-one only, but was deliberately built to make this a smaller step later rather than a rebuild — the groundwork is already there.
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Warm intro requestsIdea
Ask a mutual connection to make an introduction, rather than messaging someone cold — closer to how GBx members already tend to operate.
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Proactive matchingIdea
When someone updates "Looking for help with," surface two or three relevant members automatically, rather than waiting for them to go searching. A natural companion to the headline search idea above, using the same underlying data.
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Profile completeness nudgesIdea
A gentle prompt for members who haven't filled in a photo, Asks, or Offers — the directory (and the search idea above) only gets more useful as more profiles are complete.
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Post-event follow-upIdea
After an event, a prompt to connect with people who were actually there — a natural extension of the "who's going" idea above, on the other side of the event.
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Staff analyticsIdea
Not member-facing — a simple dashboard for engagement (most active members, what's being searched for, directory usage) to help inform where GBx itself puts its energy.
Next Step
Talk through this list together, pick what matters most, and turn the winners into a real scoped plan — the same way every phase of this project has worked so far.
See Project Progress for everything already built.