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How Hank is helping seniors connect and live more active lifeSupporting Hank's engineering team

Hank x TulaCo: Engineering a community for seniors

TulaCo x Hank

Want to have a long, happy life? Science says the key is friends! Studies suggest that the more friends we have, and the more socially active we are – the longer and happier our lives be. The bad news is - our social circles tend to narrow as we age. Retirement, divorce, and empty-nesting often leave one in three 55+ adults isolated and lonely.

Making friends as we are getting older is not a walk in the park either. But it does not have to be like this - especially, in the age where digital connections are so easy to make. What is hard, is to translate those connections into real-life friendships that fulfil our life and let us enjoy it to the fullest.

This is the issue that Brian Park and Andrew Hong tackled when founded the digital platform, Hank. Hank is one of the few tech startups building better senior care. The start-up is a part of AARP's ventures accelerator program and has raised $7MM in seed funding from General Catalyst and Resolute Ventures which has helped over 150 entrepreneurs grow high-impact companies in a variety of industries.

In 2022, TulaCo partnered up with Hank to support their engineering team in fulfilling the startup's mission - help seniors connect, make new friends, be socially active, and as a result - live a happy life!

How Hank is helping seniors connect and live more active life

Hank is a digital platform created for 55+ adults to connect with like-minded people and find activities in their community. Hank is all about the people who do not let age define their limits. With curated group activities like pickleball, canasta, skydiving, and more, Hank helps active individuals find connections online that translate into offline activities and friendships, that are critical to happiness and longevity.

After ten years in the tech industry, I saw a clear and solvable bias problem in how products were developed: age,” said Brian Park, co-founder, and CEO, Hank. “I created Hank because I knew there was an opportunity to innovate for empty nesters like my parents, who were looking for ways to build their community and preferred to deepen their friendships in real life and not just behind a screen. For them, social activities have been key to happiness in this new chapter of life, and I knew, that we could use technology to improve in-person social connections for this specific demographic.

Hank digital platform

Hank is all about the community. Its members can find Hank-sponsored events such as pickleball, art workshops, coffee meetups, game nights, and more based on their geographic location. Or create their own events to connect with others over shared passions, hobbies, and interests. Currently available for New York City area residents, Hank will be expanding to other major metro areas in 2023.

Supporting Hank's engineering team

As many tech startups do, around April 2022 Hank found itself in the need of software engineers, but with a lack of time to search for, and interview multiple in-house candidates. Brian and Andrew reached out to TulaCo, based on a glowing recommendation from another founder who had previously worked with us. They approached us with a specific challenge:

They needed two engineers who could handle requests from their end and that would be able to work directly under Hank’s management team. TulaCo was more than happy to connect with Hank and accommodate its engineering needs by selecting and integrating 2 of our engineers, who had been working together on similar projects in the past and where we knew they would easily and seamlessly integrate into Hank’s existing team structure.

Our two developers quickly brought themselves up to speed on Hank’s tech stack, UI components, and product development process (while making helpful suggestions of their own) and were able to start shipping quality products faster than expected.

When Brian and Andrew reached out to us, we knew they needed to scale quickly. We therefore selected two of our engineers with the perfect skillset, tech stack and proven track record of being able to get up to speed on a new project in no time. Ever since we started our collaboration, the two engineers fit in perfectly into the Hank team and servicing them has been an absolute pleasure.

- Lars Heimsath, Head of Growth - TulaCo

Now Hank’s development team is a mix of in-house developers and engineers from TulaCo. Our tech resources have been instrumental in helping with the early days of the product and as Hank's development team grew to include in-house developers, they have been more than happy to retain TulaCo developers for their speed, technical abilities, and ease of working.

Our developers from TulaCo are integral to maintaining our engineering velocity and have been deeply involved in all of our major technical endeavors. We would not be nearly as far along with our product as we are without them.

- Andrew Hong, Head of Design - Hank

With the start of the New Year, Hank is continuing its plans to expand their offering and product availability in other cities across the US. While the platform is gaining more and more traction, TulaCo is available to support them in their growth. We are looking forward to an exciting year in 2023 and are ready for the ride!

Mariam Rusishvili Marketing Manager
Mariam Rusishvili
Marketing Manager
Mariam is someone who has a million tabs open in a browser and even more coffee cups on her desk. Or in other words - She is a marketing manager at TulaCo. She is responsible for building the TulaCo brand & putting our logo simply everywhere, creating and implementing marketing strategies, that nobody understands except the marketing team, and overseeing content production. On this very blog, Mariam will write about our culture, people, or anything we can't assign anyone else!
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