Computer science student Prianna Sharan (CAS’25) never planned to become an entrepreneur when she arrived at Boston University from California. Yet her desire for creative autonomy and a chance meeting with Remi Chester (Questrom’25) during her first week at BU Splash would change that trajectory entirely. Now the co-founder and CTO of Popple—a social media app designed to combat loneliness by fostering in-person connections among college students—Prianna has been named Innovate@BU’s Student Innovator of the Year.
“We hadn’t really found our thing here that we really liked to do,” Prianna recalls. “Parallelly, we were talking about how hard it is to find things to get involved in and things to do on campus.”
These dual realizations sparked an idea that would eventually become Popple, an app using AI to match students based on common interests and connect them at events.
With just a concept and a basic pitch deck, Prianna and Remi approached Innovate@BU, unsure if they had enough to present. “I was a little bit nervous at first because I felt like I hadn’t come up with enough traction or I didn’t have a product yet,” Prianna shares. “But Ian [Mashiter] was so welcoming and willing to help us go from that early stage to where we are now.”
Through the Innovation Pathway program at Innovate@BU, Prianna and Remi received mentorship that helped them refine their idea, conduct user interviews, and build their first prototype. With guidance from their mentor, they created a basic Figma prototype and surveyed approximately 500 students. The overwhelmingly positive response—over 80% of respondents indicated they would download and use the app—confirmed they were addressing a genuine need.
Popple has evolved significantly since that initial prototype. Now available on the App Store, the platform has grown to approximately 5,000 users across Boston universities and is growing at a rate of 20% month over month. The app has partnerships with around 30 event venues in Boston, including Fidelity for Startups, Boston University, Northeastern University, and various local nonprofits and social venues.
Prianna describes Popple as “the next generation of a platform like Meetup or Eventbrite” with a focus on tackling loneliness, which the U.S. Surgeon General declared the number one public health crisis in the United States last year.
“The process of finding events is very manual, and finding people to go with involves texting somebody and hoping they’re free,” Prianna explains. “We really want to automate a lot of that and disrupt a space that hasn’t been disrupted in 20-plus years.”
The journey from idea to app has included several milestones. After entering the Walk stage of the Innovation Pathway, Prianna and Remi quickly advanced to the Run stage with their prototype and early user feedback. Later, they participated in MassChallenge, a Boston accelerator program with about a 10% acceptance rate among startups.
“We were the youngest people in that program at the time,” Prianna notes. “We were hearing stories of entrepreneurs who were ten-plus years older than us. It was a really great and humbling experience to be among other entrepreneurs who are doing this full time, and it made us believe that we could also do it full time.”
Popple continued to gain recognition, including being named a Poets&Quants 2024 Most Disruptive Business School Startup and competing at the national level of the Hult Prize, one of the largest social impact competitions for student entrepreneurs worldwide. The team traveled to Lisbon to represent both Boston University and the United States, connecting with entrepreneurs from around the globe addressing diverse social challenges.
As Popple has grown, so has its team. Prianna handles all development of the app, working with four other developers to analyze user data and release updates every two weeks. Meanwhile, Remi focuses on business and marketing, managing partnerships and user acquisition through guerrilla marketing tactics like “donuts for downloads.” The team has expanded to include students recruited through the First-Year Innovation Fellowship (FYIF) program at Innovate@BU.
For Prianna, one of the most rewarding aspects of building Popple has been seeing its impact on users. From observing real-time connections at beta test events to reading App Store reviews, she takes pride in knowing Popple is fulfilling its mission of creating meaningful connections.
“People say things like, ‘I met my boyfriend on Popple’ or ‘I met people that are really important to me and have had a lasting impact on my life,’” Prianna shares. “That’s exactly what we want to do with the platform.”
When asked what advice she would give to students considering entrepreneurship, Prianna emphasizes not waiting to get involved. “I wish I’d gotten involved even earlier so I would have had more years to work on Popple and other ideas,” she reflects. “There’s a lot of pressure, especially in entrepreneurship, that entrepreneurs put on themselves to have the perfect idea and the perfect path forward. But in reality, especially when you’re a student, you really don’t know much. So it’s always helpful to have this hub of resources that you can go to for advice and mentorship.”
