One place to understand the product, the plan, and how we operate. Whether you're onboarding, running a campaign, writing code, or closing a partnership — start here. Pick a section below to go deep.
Core beliefs, brand voice, and the framework behind every decision. Read this before contributing to any campaign or product work.
"University spirit shouldn't be confined to private circles. Students deserve a place where the inside joke includes everyone — where culture is shared across the whole school, one big click. Not just the urgent stuff. The real stuff. The funny, the controversial, the honest."
Every decision we make — product, marketing, partnerships — traces back to this: if something doesn't fit, it doesn't ship. talks. drives community at universities by integrating and mirroring their own culture. Everything we build serves one goal: the projection and growth of university life.
University spirit shouldn't be confined to private circles. A place where the inside joke includes everyone, where culture is shared by the whole school. One big click.
Anonymous by default — always. Features that can only exist because everyone in the app is at your university. Anonymity removes clout → people say what they actually think. Equality is one pillar, not the whole thing.
A real-time digital pulse for universities. The raw feed of collective campus thought — trending topics, student-to-student storytelling, the culture of your university reflected back at you.
Disruptive. Honest. Unfiltered. Student-built. Energetic. Confident. Says what people actually think. Not a template, not a formula — a feeling that runs through everything we make.
Raw and real. Confident without being arrogant. Say the thing people are already thinking. Homegrown, campus-first tone. Energy that feels student-made.
Clout-chasing. Influencer aesthetics. Overly polished. Corporate language. Promoter voice. Anything built to appeal to everyone everywhere.
App status, the team, what's live in production, and what still needs work. Updated April 2026.
| Feature | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Feed (trending / top / latest / controversial) | Live | Core loop. Trending score via epoch-time formula + Remote Config params. |
| Posts | Live | Anonymous + alias. Word filter in Cloud Functions. |
| Voting | Live | Up/down vote. Drives trending score. |
| Comments with GIFs | Live | Tenor GIF integration. |
| Bookmarks (Saved Vault) | Live | |
| Algolia Search | Live | Production index. Env controlled via ALGOLIA_INDEX dart-define. |
| Push Notifications (FCM) | Live | |
| Gamification — Culture Score | Live | Score earned through voting, posting, commenting. |
| Lore Timeline | Live | Notable campus moments, curated. |
| Alias Profiles | Live | Earned identity. Anonymous option always available. |
| Announcements | Live | |
| Admin Panel (in-app) | Live | Moderation queue, manual review. Replaced by standalone backend in summer. |
| Moderation / Reporting | Live | Word filter + manual queue. No CV yet. |
| Sub-communities v3 | In Progress | Branch done, not yet shipped. Shipping as-is to keep things fresh. |
| Private Post Replies (anon DMs v1) | In Progress | Post-level only. Only post creator sees the reply. |
| The Frame | Exploratory | Possible week-long event before end of year. Full feature is summer. |
| Images in Posts | Summer | Blocked until CV moderation is ready. With UI rework. |
| Talks Match | Summer | Real profiles (not anonymous). Ranked pool of 5, ELO-style. Summer dev. |
| Full UI Redesign | Summer | Threads/X inspired. No partial redesign before summer. |
| Admin Backend Panel (standalone) | Summer | Web-based. Replacing Firebase console manual workflow. |
Monthly spend tracking — Firebase, Algolia, and any other active services. Managed by Marta Bermejo.
Budget Google Sheet link TBD — Marta to provide.
Firebase is managed manually. The in-app admin panel is the current workaround. A proper web-based backend panel is planned for summer.
Images in posts are blocked until CV is in place. Word filter + manual queue handles text for now.
No Firebase Storage + CDN + compression pipeline yet. Needed before images ship.
thetalksapp.com doesn't reflect current product state. Lower priority — app is the focus.
What we're posting, what campaigns are live, and who we're working with. Primary audience: Renata, Gilberto, Christian, Marta.
These three formats are always running. Campaign content and other posts fill in around them.
Collaboration with Jade, a matcha gallery opening in Madrid. Opening was originally April 23rd but delayed due to a miscalculation on their end — now TBD, estimated around April 30+. Contact is Paula Rojas.
"Art galleries are usually quiet, but we talk." — written specifically for this activation. Not a permanent brand pattern.
Freshers-facing rollout campaign when sub-communities ship. Launching a dedicated Instagram account as part of the campaign rollout.
talks.' own presence during Freshers Week September 2026. On our terms — not becoming a promoter. Comms team (Renata, Gilberto, Christian) + Samer manage the Instagram and WhatsApp community. Marta handles promoter contact and partnership logistics.
Open question: Fresh Talks by Talks — freshers-focused Instagram account. Culture-first positioning or intro-account style? Samer's position: talks. has enough culture to be the destination for real campus life, not another intro/promo account.
| Partner | Type | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jade (matcha gallery) | Brand collab | Active | Opening delayed ~Apr 30+. Taste test video + possible secret menu item. Contact: Paula Rojas. |
| Puro Royo | The Frame incentive | Exploratory | Candidate for The Frame reward (e.g. free meal for longest-standing photo). No approach yet. |
| Promotion companies | Freshers Week collab | Summer | On talks.' terms only. Not becoming a promoter. |
| Universidad Europea | Expansion | Summer+ | Thoughts so far — no formal approach yet. September+ expansion target. |
The north star, what we're shipping now, and what's coming next. Everything on the roadmap serves the vision below.
Like WeChat, but for campus life. Once you're in one university's talks., you need to be in all of them. Community feed, matching, events, lore — everything campus-related in one place. The goal isn't to be a good app. It's to become so embedded that you can't imagine campus life without it. An unwritten rule.
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Stack, dev workflow, coding standards, and branch strategy. Primary audience: Samer and JM.
Flutter · Riverpod 2.5 · iOS + Android
Firebase Firestore · Cloud Functions v7 (Node 22, TypeScript) · Auth · FCM · Remote Config · Analytics · Crashlytics
Algolia · Production index · Env controlled via ALGOLIA_INDEX dart-define
ie-talks-staging — developmentie-talks — production
Break UI into small, focused widgets. Business logic belongs in providers and services, not in build methods.
Non-obvious logic gets a comment. Not every line — just the parts that would confuse someone in 6 months.
No unbounded reads. Always paginate. No reads inside loops. Missing limits get flagged in review.
Always develop against ie-talks-staging. No local emulators required. Only deploy what's tested and backwards-compatible.
| Branch | Purpose |
|---|---|
main | Production only. App Store + Play Store deploys. |
feature/[name] | All development work. Merges to main when tested on staging. |
brain | Second brain site only. Claude commits here directly. Never merges to main. |
Open questions that need an answer, and finalized decisions with the reasoning behind them.
Not a full DM inbox. Private replies are post-level only — only the post creator can see them. The use case: "I have extra seats in my car to the ski slopes" → someone replies privately to connect.
Full DM inbox is pushed to post-summer. Too much complexity + moderation burden for now.
Users can see all communities, but can only fully interact (vote, post, reply) in their own. Verified by enrollment data.
Blocked until computer vision moderation is ready. Ships alongside the UI rework in summer. No broad image posting before that — no exceptions.
Threads/X inspired redesign. No-cards layout, bottom nav add-post button, minimal feel. No partial redesign or incremental changes before the summer overhaul — do it all at once.
Dating/matching requires real photos and profiles for trust context. Anonymous option is not available in Talks Match. Ranked pool of 5, ELO-style hidden scoring — no public scores.
Build the MVP first, collect weekly match volume data, then pitch partners with proof. Puro Royo is a candidate to explore for The Frame (not Talks Match). No approaches before we have numbers.
talks. won't become a promotion account or introduction farm. Any collaboration with promotion companies is on talks.' terms only. We differentiate by being the destination for real campus culture, not another promoter.