How The Platform Works

A new member signs up via the /register page using their email. No credit card required — membership is free.

• Account is created via the built-in Base44 auth system
• After email verification, they are redirected to the registration questionnaire

The registration questionnaire collects everything needed to generate high-quality matches.

• Step 1 — Basic Info: name, business name, industry, phone
• Step 2 — Needs: what they're looking for (customers, vendors, partners, etc.), urgency, and budget readiness
• Step 3 — Offers: what services/products they provide, and their ideal customer type
• Step 4 — Business Profile: business stage (startup/growing/established) and collaboration preference
• Step 5 — Open Responses: business goal, biggest challenge, ideal connection description, open opportunities, and tool insights

On profile completion, the generateMatches backend function is automatically triggered. It scores the new member against every other member in the database.

• Scoring layers: direct need↔offer overlap, reverse overlap, business stage compatibility, collaboration alignment, ideal customer match, and AI open-response alignment (0–5 bonus points via LLM)
• Two-sided urgency/budget readiness multiplier is applied to the final score
• Top 5 matches are stored in the Matches entity with score, reason, offer categories, profile photo, and AI-generated conversation starters
• Members can refresh their matches at any time from Edit Profile