Finding Product–Market Fit for a New Campus Events App

Finding the PM Fit for a Campus Events App

Identifying the real drivers of event discovery to strengthen pricing strategy, messaging, and a product roadmap for Circa.

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The Challenge

Low visibility for campus events, inconsistent communication, and no clear path to the features that mattered most to students.

500+

Data points including key customer quotes, unmet needs, and ranked preferences

15+

Feature-level recommendations, de-risking product roadmap

Key “Pull Factors” that target users would want in an event app

Context & Constraints

Circa is a SaaS startup building a web app to help college students discover, plan, and attend campus events with ease. They faced the classic startup test: pinpointing and delivering the features that would make their product truly indispensable.

For students, planning and discovering campus events felt fragmented across multiple platforms, with limited visibility, inconsistent communication, and low motivation to engage beyond their immediate friend groups.

For Circa, several event apps had already tried and failed to gain traction on campuses — often because they didn’t balance the needs of both students and university staff, leaving adoption and retention short of expectations.

The Deliverable

Through a focused Research Sprint, we studied how student leaders plan events, choose tools, and make decisions—testing early marketing concepts and pricing models along the way.

We uncovered why many students stick with tools they dislike in an already-saturated campus tech landscape, and where competing event apps repeatedly failed to gain traction.

These insights revealed clear opportunity gaps—particularly where products failed to balance the needs of both students and university staff—informing a focused, evidence-based strategy for design, messaging, and go-to-market execution.

Pricing Model Validation — clear expectations for free vs. paid tiers
500+ Data Points identifying the features that matter most to users
Proven Value Propositions — tested messaging to drive adoption
Go-to-Market Strategy + Campus Catalyst List — a prioritized set of roles, segments, and event types to accelerate pilot traction and network growth

Research Method

Study Sampling

Don't Take Our Word For It

“affinityUX’s ability to articulate and anchor on user needs is exceptional. Their interview questions delve deep, uncovering the authentic needs of users to improve the product. They are a true asset to any team. I welcome the opportunity to collaborate with them again.”

Eli Yazdi

Founder & Product Designer

Outcomes

De-Risked Product Roadmap

Circa’s product roadmap now mirrors the priorities of its target users, including integrations, campus-specific platform spaces, and hyper-local event discovery. Now they know exactly how to make an app that stands apart and solves the multi-channel problems that users face.

Confident Pricing and Revenue Models

The research validated specific price points and the factors that drive different user types to pay for premium features.

Student-staff expected schools to foot the bill for premium, informing key pathways to adoption through university partnerships, not just a direct-to-student approach.

Clear Marketing Direction

Circa is now equipped with proven value propositions that map onto the sweet spot of high importance + low satisfaction with current tools, positioning them for increased adoption.

Accelerated a Go-to-Market Strategy and Campus Pilot Program

This inspired the affinityUX team to make a bonus a deliverable for Circa: a List of Campus Catalysts (market segments to target for power users and inform GTM Strategy, with specific campus roles that are searchable online and event types they lead that create opportunities for Circa.