Austin Kevitch ’14 isn’t one to sit still. In fewer than six years, the serial entrepreneur has participated in the design and development of four successful apps: Scholly, Brighten, Phoneless and Moodboost. Now he’s at it again.
Although currently in negotiations to sell Brighten Labs — the umbrella company for Brighten, Phoneless and Moodboost — Kevitch is already hard at work with three co-founders on a new venture: The Lox Club, a private, membership-based dating app that sprang from Kevitch’s gentle ribbing of his mother.
“My mom is single and has had a series of nightmare experiences with dating apps, so during the COVID crisis, I half-jokingly created a dating app to cater to ‘Jews with ridiculously high standards,’ ” he explains. Much to Kevitch’s surprise, a couple thousand people signed up, so he and his partners began refining the app, which launched in July.
This isn’t the first app Kevitch has created to solve a problem. The management major co-founded Scholly, an app that helps students find college scholarships, and later appeared on NBC’s Shark Tank. When a good friend died, Kevitch left the team to create Brighten, an app that allows people to send compliments to loved ones. Next up were Phoneless, an app to break users’ phone addiction, and Moodboost, an app that delivers an uplifting news story each day. “Moodboost is especially relevant for this hectic point in time,” asserts Kevitch. “For a one-time subscription, you can receive good news stories for life.”
Speaking to his success, Kevitch is modest. “I’ve learned that in the real world, no one actually knows what they’re doing,” he says. “It’s hard for people to imagine what doesn’t exist. You just have to dive in and trust that you’ll figure it out.”