🔒Q&A: Holy Cross student launches app with billion-dollar ambitions

When 21-year-old College of the Holy Cross student Thomas “TJ” Haigh first developed his idea for Trivflic, his goal was to connect others and build a community through the fun of trivia games. Little did he know his app would garner 3,000 users across 35 New England colleges or reach the 95th percentile for Apple's App Store user retention. Haigh has won multiple entrepreneurial contests and received almost $100,000 from investors to expand his company. While still a college student majoring in political science and pre-law and earning his entrepreneurship certificate, Haigh is learning firsthand that dreaming big and working hard are the key to any successful business.

How did you develop the idea for Trivflic?

Right after sports betting became legal in Massachusetts, I was like, what if there was a trivia social media app? I ran a couple of Google searches, and the whole gambling component became way too legally complex. So I took away the sports betting component and just made a trivia-based social media platform for people to connect with their friends, colleagues, and family members. I had one iteration of the idea workshopped and pitched it at the Holy Cross Cross Tank, which is their version of the business show “Shark Tank.”

Following our success at Cross Tank, Trivflic was selected to StartUP Worcester, an accelerator in Worcester for college startups. I pulled in some investors and raised $35,000 by the end of 2023. The app was launched in February 2024, and Trivflic was selected to compete in the Woo Tank in 2024, representing Holy Cross.

What is the purpose of Trivflic?

I describe Trivflic as a gamified social media trivia experiment, as 92% of people have a positive experience with trivia, whether they got the question right or wrong. Trivia is this overwhelmingly positive thing, and I want to push out the positivity. Everyday users get three daily questions and because of the social media component, you can go on Trivflic, post on the app, share with your friends, and build a community.

What are the benefits and the obstacles of being an entrepreneur while being a college student?

I feel like I've already started my career four years earlier, and I've been out there in the real world. I feel like I have this tremendous leg up on the job competition just by networking with people. I am in an entrepreneurship class right now, and we were talking about this company in class; I had already talked with the company’s owner months ago and had his phone number.

Being a student and being CEO of Trivflic can be hard, but I use my Google Calendar to keep everything in order. Time management is key. It is about figuring out how to do something efficiently and quickly while thinking smarter and harder at the same time. Anybody can work hard, and anybody can think; but bringing the two together is important.

Whether Trivflic becomes Worcester's first unicorn or if it doesn't, I've built this business network where I can go and kind of explore my next idea or help somebody else build their own company.

What is it like being a young entrepreneur in Worcester, and what has the reception been like in the city’s business networks?

There is a lot of opportunity here in Worcester. I have developed relationships with a lot of cool and supportive people here that have absolutely propelled me forward as an entrepreneur. People told me that business was a dog-eat-dog world, but I have not experienced that in Worcester.

It's interesting that we have a lot of college users on the app, a bunch of users from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Assumption University. I've been going to all of these different entrepreneurs in these other colleges like Nichols College and saying, "What can I do to help you?" If Trivflic ever becomes a billion-dollar company, I'm going to put the headquarters in Worcester.

What is your vision for the future?

We are trying to figure out what the next step is for Trivflic. How do we get into bars or concerts when there is that gap of time before the show starts and people get bored waiting?

My future vision is to continue to network and talk with the people who have helped me to where I am today. We are thinking of using Trivflic to help college admission departments. For example, Holy Cross had 9,000 applicants last year, and it accepted roughly 2,000 students. So, what if there was a trivia component where you sent out 20 questions about Holy Cross or about the campus tours. Because anybody can go out and get a 1450 on the SAT or write an essay in ChatGPT and attend webinars, but how do you determine who is actually interested in the college? How do you determine who the actual interested applicants are to then lower or to increase your yield rate, lower the acceptance rate? So, there is a lot of fine tuning to do, but that is one of the trajectories we are figuring out.

This interview was conducted and edited for length and clarity by WBJ Correspondent Sloane M. Perron.