Bondit Community, part 1 of 3
The role I proposed
There was no opening, so I described the job myself.
Context
Bondit Community makes IGotIn, an app for students moving from high school into their first year of college. It helps with the things that matter at the start: finding a roommate, joining group chats, getting to know your class before you arrive.
I met the CEO, an NYU alum, by chance. We got to know each other, and I came to believe in what the company was trying to build. I joined in December 2025, right after Morgan Stanley.
The problem
Two problems, really.
The first was mine. The company had a marketing team and a product team of engineers and designers. There was no role that matched what I could offer.
The second was the company’s. The app was most useful in the weeks before and just after the semester started. Once students had found their roommates and settled in, they had little reason to open it again, and usage dropped.
What I did
Writing my own job description
I pitched a role. From finance I brought speed and the habit of running several projects at once. I had also been interested in social media marketing for a long time. I proposed a strategy team, which didn’t exist yet, and the CEO agreed to let me build and lead it.
Asking why people left
Instead of guessing why students stopped using the app, I asked them. I designed and ran surveys to understand what would give students a reason to keep coming back. One idea stood out: give them a way to earn money through the app. I tested that hypothesis with the surveys, and the results fed directly into the decision to pivot the product in that direction.
Growth work
On the growth side, I reworked the sign-up funnel. Users grew by about 15%, sign-up conversion rose by 22%, and the cost of acquiring each user fell by about 35%. Our social media campaigns raised brand awareness and passed a million impressions.
Getting ready to raise money
I also helped prepare for the seed round. I drafted more than fifteen custom revenue-share agreements and organized the financial materials investors would ask for, which helped shorten due diligence by about a week.
What I learned
If the role you want doesn’t exist, you can propose it. But then you have to prove it was needed, every week, and that is a higher bar than being hired into a job someone else defined.
The more useful lesson was about method. The most valuable thing I did at Bondit wasn’t clever. It was asking users why they left and believing the answer.