Giving Researchers the Community They Deserve With Pibblish

The Problem

Researchers consistently struggle with:

• Figuring out which research topics are active or emerging
• Finding enough qualified participants
• Understanding where and how to publish their work

Our Objectives

We set out to understand what researchers actually need and design a product that addressed:

• Topic discovery
• Participant recruitment
• Publishing guidance
• Academic community building

My Role & Contributions

I interviewed both student and senior researchers about how they choose topics, find participants, and approach publishing. From these conversations, a few consistent patterns emerged:

• It’s difficult to know which topics are “popular” or emerging
• Recruiting participants can delay entire timelines
• Publishing is confusing, especially for newer researchers
• There’s no dedicated, reliable academic community space

I also conducted a competitive analysis of Reddit, LinkedIn, Notion, Scopus, and Eventbrite. From each platform, we pulled inspiration:

• Reddit → community interaction
• LinkedIn → professional presence
• Notion → structured, modern UI
• Scopus → high-quality research access
• Eventbrite → event discovery

What We Built

• A centralized space for topic discovery
• Tools for participant recruitment
• Clear guidance for publishing and academic events
• A modern, structured academic community

Researchers validated the concept and told us this solved a real gap — especially for beginners navigating academia.