TAMPA, Fla. — For many students in college, it can be difficult to navigate the stress of school and also find a community where you feel like you belong, especially for business students.

The need to help business students find people to collaborate with on projects is where "Peabj" comes into play. It's an app being used by business students at USF to build professional connections.

The app was funded by Jordan Murti and Kamila Khasanova.

More than 200 students at the University of South Florida have downloaded and are using the app.

That includes Sarthak Pattnaik, who grew up playing badminton in India and recently got back into the sport. He introduced it to his friend, Nicholas Pacini, after meeting him through the app.

“You can still connect with people. It’s an easy enough entry barrier that almost anybody can play the game,” Pacini said of badminton.

Pattnaik and Pacini are students at the MUMA College of Business at USF.

Nicholas says the app has helped immensely. "You can meet people in school, but it’s hard to tell who’s taking it seriously or who’s trying to do more than just school, so the Peabj app is like, 'Hey, this is someone who is getting their MBA.'”

It has fast-tracked the duo’s professional goal of creating a startup company.

“It’s basically helped us to locate the right person, the right talent rather than getting nowhere,” Pattnaik said.

It has helped place them in competitive programs like Hustle, which provides a team with funding for their startup company.

The two say it’s a company aimed at helping lawyers.

“We have the opportunity to actually get serious funding from serious investors where we can take what we’re learning in school, the products that we’re making together, and get funding so that we can apply that to the real world," Pacini said.

The app has been up and running for less than a year so far and will eventually be open to all students across the nation.