There exists in America a pervasive problem that eats away at each and every person: boredom. In normal times boredom is something to be expected, something people distract themselves from with social media or streaming services. But after a year in quarantine spent scrolling through Instagram Reels and binge-watching old TV shows online, these distractions aren't cutting it anymore.
People don't just feel bored during their free time, either. Boredom pervades everything, from work to school to lazy Sunday mornings with nothing to do. Studies show that a staggering 87% of adults feel boredom in their work, while 90% of students experience boredom every day. And boredom can be a dangerous thing-studies also show that teens who are often bored are 50% more likely to take up smoking, drinking, and illegal drugs.
James Pratama saw the problem that boredom poses and set out to find a solution. Pratama is an entrepreneur and product manager who is building an innovative solution to solve what is arguably an urgent problem in the world. Together with fellow entrepreneur Leo Liu, Pratama has developed Alohub, a platform that allows you to find a variety of fun experiences in your city all in a couple of clicks.
Pratama and Liu first came up with the idea for Alohub together after they attended a pottery painting class in Boston. Having seen what a creative and one-of-a-kind experience it was hiding right under their noses, they quickly realized that there were plenty of experiences like it just waiting to be found. The problem that needed to be solved was this: how could they help people discover fun new experiences when these experiences tended to be buried under unrelated products and services online?
This is where Alohub comes in. Alohub is a platform that consolidates all of the fun experiences in your city into one app. "Think about it as Netflix for in-person experiences, a way to browse through salsa dancing, axe throwing, and kayaking excursions like you browse your favorite TV shows. Users looking for something fun to do can look through a curated catalog of between 50 and 100 fun experiences run by local businesses, literally choosing their own adventure" says Pratama. Alohub also benefits businesses by allowing them to better market their experiences directly to the people interested in them.
Alohub even helps its users meet new people, as it gives them the option to join social time slots to enjoy experiences with people they've never met before. Other apps have attempted to introduce people to new friends, but they've done so with limited success. Whereas swiping for friends on Bumble Friends can feel unnatural and forced, Alohub allows new people to meet in a much more organic and natural way-through shared experiences. It's a lot easier to bond over rock climbing than it is through endless texting. And because these experiences are hosted by businesses and done in groups, safety and comfort are guaranteed for everyone.
As for James Pratama, this isn't the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey. Since he was a young boy growing up in Indonesia, he's had a knack and obsession for solving problems in the most creative of ways. Pratama saw the many problems prevalent in developing countries, including poverty, inequality, and pollution. While enrolled in Babson College, he started a social enterprise called Orange Papaya that helped Indonesian women living in underprivileged areas make a salary by hand-making recycled newspaper notebooks that were sold in the United States. Orange Papaya went on to sell hundreds of hand-woven newspaper notebooks, raising USD $4,777 with 96 backers on Kickstarter.
From there, Pratama became interested in using technology to solve problems. He got the opportunity to work at DataRobot, where he worked on product management in artificial intelligence. There he became lead Product Manager for DataRobot Pathfinder, a public library of use cases that help organizations understand what business problems they can solve using artificial intelligence. Pratama led the product from inception and development through to launch and maintenance, and it has now become the most comprehensive public library of practical artificial intelligence use cases on the market.
But Pratama didn't stop there. His time at DataRobot inspired him to try and find ways to use technology to improve the decisions people make on a daily basis. Having identified boredom as a major problem plaguing people of all ages, he decided to start Alohub with fellow entrepreneur Leo Liu to give people the ability to easily find fun new experiences.
Pratama's mission is to make it as easy and simple as possible for people to find things to do with their friends, a date, or new people. Through Alohub, he is decluttering the way that people decide what to do and who to do it with. Over the course of designing Alohub, Pratama has spoken to hundreds of users and dozens of businesses to learn about their pain points so that he can build a product that can finally bridge both sides. Whether people are looking to enjoy a hot yoga class with their partner or meet new people through a shared mini golf session, Pratama is giving people an easy way to do it.
Tackling a problem as pervasive as boredom takes an incredible amount of talent and creativity, and it's clear that James Pratama has this in spades. Since Alohub's launch in February 2021, it has worked with dozens of businesses in Boston and created a shared community of hundreds of people who like to do adventurous things. It remains to be seen what's next for James Pratama and Alohub, but if the past is any indication, the future looks bright.
