Breaking the Ice

The way we communicate with one another today barely resembles the methods of staying in touch employed by previous generations. But one interpersonal holdout from the era of pay phones and pagers still causes anxiety: the icebreaker.

Jake Kohl ’12
Majors: Computer Science, Philosophy

Jake Kohl ’12 is ready to bring the icebreaker into the digital age. His app, Klink, is designed to help take some of the chill out of the cold open by matching users into pairs and giving them a preloaded getting-to-know-you style question to answer. Answer the question correctly by chatting with your partner and voilà, you’ve broken the ice.

“It’s really hard to cold-approach; [Klink] sets up the opportunity to get to know someone,” Kohl says.

Developed as part of Fargo’s Startup Weekend in 2015, Kohl and five partners earned the event’s honorary “Just Do It” award. The team’s aha moment really came, however, when eventgoers used the app to get to know one another at the after-party.

“It was a huge hit. People were using Klink all night,” Kohl says.

The team behind Klink is rolling with the momentum. Since its initial development, Kohl has presented the app at the weekly 1 Million Cups Fargo meetup, a forum for connecting and educating entrepreneurs. Shortly after that, the app was featured in The Forum newspaper in a rundown of local entrepreneurs creating innovative social-networking apps.

“We want this to be more than just a side project,” Kohl says. “We all believe we have a $1 million idea.”

Kohl, who works as a quality assurance engineer for Intelligent InSites, is grateful for the community’s support of entrepreneurs. He believes that events like 1 Million Cups Fargo and Startup Weekend put the right people together to open doors and create opportunities.

“We have a ‘yes we can’ attitude,” Kohl says. “The startup spirit lives on in Fargo.”

How to get going in the Fargo-Moorhead startup scene:

1. BE ACTIVE ABOUT FINDING LOCAL EVENTS

Subscribe to the Emerging Prairie email list to start off, and then actively use Facebook and Eventbrite to find events in town. 1 Million Cups, Startup Drinks and Startup Weekend are the big events to attend.

2. FOLLOW LOCAL STARTUP LEADERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

On Twitter, follow @emergingprairie, @gregfromfargo and other users with the "from Fargo" handles.

3. BE COURAGEOUS AND SAY "HI!"

It starts with meeting one person, then two people, and before you know it, you can't walk in downtown Fargo without seeing someone you know.

^{Published January 2016}