Poll-taking app developed by two students

Two Marshall School of Business graduates are working to make decision-making easier and more efficient through their app Swayy.

Andrew Abramson and Andrew Costa met in their first year in the Marshall’s MBA program in 2013. In the fall of 2014, they began creating their app  which helps users make difficult choices through instant feedback from friends.

The team is finalizing modifications to the app and is hoping to launch on the App Store next week.

The idea for Swayy was set in motion when Abramson’s fiancé could not decide what to wear to dinner. Abramson thought this concept would be a unique idea for an app and pitched it the following day at a competition for an entrepreneurship class.

With high regard and enthusiasm for his idea, Abramson, CEO of Swayy, quickly partnered with close friend Costa, the cofounder of the app.

“We are targeting the high school, college and post-grad people who are on social media and who want to have that social validation amongst their friends,” Costa said. “They also understand the technology, which is very important.”

With Swayy, users can send a visual poll between two choices, whether it is a fashion or fantasy football question, to a select group of friends.

The app then automatically creates a group chat among those who are on Swayy and friends can vote on what choice the individual should make and defend their opinion.

The user is able to set a certain time frame based on how quickly the response is needed. The person in need of answers is able to choose photos from his or her camera roll or use photos from the Internet, as the app is integrated with Google.

Abramson said the two developers received a lot of responses to what their app should be like when they were making it.

“Something that was really challenging was trying to identify what feedback to listen to versus what feedback to be more tone deaf to,” Abramson said. “At the end of the day, you have to do what you think is right and stick to your vision, which I think we did a really good job of. But we also make a really big effort to look at our data that we collect and use that data to inform our product decisions.”

Abramson explained that when they originally conceptualized the idea for the app, they believed women would mainly be attracted to Swayy due to their many fashion questions.

However, over the six month course of their beta testing, it was proven that men frequently use this app for professional sports team results, fantasy sports teams and movie suggestions.

“While I think there is a lot of application for girls in the fashion and food related vertical, guys were using it almost more creatively to come up with more comparisons,” Abramson said.

Aside from Abramson and Costa, Omie Ismail joined the project as the coder and Sachin Medhekar and Rishi Mody, both UCLA alumni, became part of the team as the developers. They went through all of the feedback from the beta testing and made the necessary adjustments, helping the app grow from its early stages to the final product.

USC students have different opinions about the successful use of Swayy.

Margaret Martin, a computer science graduate student, said she doesn’t think she would download the app.

“I personally wouldn’t use it, but I know a lot of women who would for the clothing input reason,” Martin said.  “I just think that people should be able to make their own decisions about simple things.”

Sara Doyle, a sophomore majoring in communication and psychology, said she might use the app to pick which restaurant to go to.

“I would definitely use this app to decide where to eat out with my friends,” Doyle said. “My friends and I are always spending so much time trying to decide where to go and this would definitely cut down on the time we spend debating where to eat.”