‘Survivor’ stars Kyle Fraser and Kamila Karthigesu introduce goal tracking app, Paprclip

On Survivor 48, Kyle Fraser alliance With his colleague Kamila Karthigesu Help push him to victory. Now, the duo is collaborating in a new space, hoping for a similar result: They’re starting a business together. The new co-founders will be introduced on Tuesday Paprikli clipa goal-focused “social accountability” app that they hope will become a more important form of social media.

Inspired by their in-game, post-game experiences, and the principles of positive psychology, the idea of ​​Paprclip is to bring people together to tackle their personal goals – whether that’s a health and wellness goal or something else entirely.

The app does it Debut KickstarterThe team aims to raise an additional $40,000 for its development.

Fraser and Karthigesu both played Survivor again in Season 50, but unfortunately Fraser He tore his Achilles While filming the first immunity challenge. He told TechCrunch in an interview that he had to quit the game and begin months of physical therapy.

At the same time she was his wife pregnantand was contemplating his next steps as a Survivor winner.

“I had a lot of things going on in my life that required organization, but also accountability and push from different people,” Fraser says. This got him thinking about how Paprclip could work, sharing clips with a friend, but with a focus on documenting and sharing their progress toward a goal.

Together, people using the app can compete in daily challenges, build their goals and habits, and upload short clips documenting their progress. These clips can remain private, or, if agreed upon, can be shared publicly on other social media sites.

“I’m very much a habit tracker, and an organization hacker,” Fraser admits. “And I thought there were a lot of habit trackers in the world and a lot of productivity tools, but nothing that really allowed you to do things together. As corny as it sounds, you’ll always hear me say ‘people, people, people’ — and that’s what I feel has made me the most successful.”

This means that Fraser credits others with helping him achieve the major goals he has in life, which include attending college, playing lacrosse, going to law school to become a lawyer for a major record company, and finally, of course, getting on the cast and winning Survivor.

“I thought, ‘Why don’t I try to develop a product that leans into something that has helped me tremendously?’” he says.

In the app, users receive new random daily challenges, meant to push them outside of their comfort zone, just like the challenges in Survivor do. However, rather than a test of physical strength, as Survivor often does, these challenges were developed in coordination with licensed clinical therapists. When couples complete challenges, their progress is tracked within the app, and they can earn badges.

Additionally, users can build their own goals, habits and tasks individually and as a pair, and can upload visual proof of their progress via clips, which are added to a shared page. This page acts as a journal where both users can check on their progress and keep each other accountable. Meanwhile, the to-do list in the app can replace the user’s individual goal or habit tracking app if they prefer to use the app independently.

Fraser stresses that while some elements of the community share a fitness app like Strava, Paprclip isn’t just about tracking health or exercise goals.

“I don’t see it as just a health and wellness app,” he says. “In fact, if Paprclip works the way I want it to, I think people will realize they can use it for anything they want — people who are trying to pursue different hobbies like cooking, or drawing, or different endeavors. This is a social accountability app.”

As in the game, Fraser and Karthigesu’s relationship as teammates worked to their advantage, the founders believe.

“Just like in the game, I would come to Kamilla with a problem — like a puzzle, or like, ‘Kamilla, I have this crazy idea, can we do it?’ “It literally happened in real life, where I was like, ‘Camila, I want to do this,’” Fraser said, and Karthigesu, a senior software engineer at Discord, had the technical chops to make it happen.

Fraser adds that the new app was created by people, not AI, which means they have hired developers and designers to help with the work.

“I’m not criticizing AI, but the one thing that was important to us is that this app is for people, and it was made by people,” he adds.

To help lift it off the ground, Paprikli clip It relies on a $20,000 grant and operational support from Fleming Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Hampden-Sydney College, where Fraser became the first alumni founder to build a company through the Forge on the Hill program. In addition, Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurship Studies The University of Michigan has awarded dedicated funding to support the UX/UI design of the application.

In addition to these investments and what is to come KickstarterPaperclip has not raised external capital.