Armaan Jain launched Priority, a productivity software made for students, in February. Seven months later, he’s looking to expand.
As a junior studying finance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jain told The Daily Cardinal he knows a lot of what his peers are doing within the university’s business school academically, but not much about their ambitions outside of the classroom.
“I've learned that there are so many cool people doing so many cool things outside of just my little bubble,” Jain said. “I think people get trapped in talking to the same people about the same ideas. Hearing about ideas that are completely unrelated to what you're doing, I think, is really important.”
Jain started his app, Priority, to “help people manage and improve their lives.” He implemented a strong community focus because, according to him, “doing things with friends and when you see them do it, it makes you way more likely to do those things yourself.”
He then realized he can do it in real life, too. Enter Priority Labs.
“Anyone who has an idea is kind of in very close proximity to each other, and that fosters natural conversation [and] collaboration,” Jain said. “I think it expands your view of what is possible when you can see what other people are building and doing, especially when it's not the same thing as what you're doing.”
Jain put together the extended program in less than a month last spring.
The program is meant to be a nine-day “sprint” to bring together passionate builders on the UW-Madison campus. The first cohort of this program, consisting of 11 people, presented at StartingPoint Madison. Across the nine days, Jain saw a wide variety of presentations.
“We had people who were trying to build personal brands. We had people who were building startup apps. We had people who were artists and pursuing music. We had people who were building their own food trucks and after school programs,” he said.
Regardless of where he takes his startup Priority, Jain said Priority Labs will always stay the same.
“I think that it's more valuable than the startup to me, actually. I care more,” Jain said. “I think Priority Labs has given me more of a sense of fulfillment than Priority has. I always want to grow the community, whatever it becomes.”
With the same goal of getting people together and to connect, Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Hub is partnering with Priority Labs to make Madison a place where creativity and entrepreneurship can collide and drive.
“I'm very passionate about this because, being a creative in Madison, sometimes it's hard to find people who are doing similar things,” Jain said, pulling from his own experiences as being in the startup world and in the music world as a singer-songwriter. “I think these fields are very sectioned off, so I just wanted to bring a sense of unity to campus.”
Lewis Sheats, named the Hub’s inaugural leader in January, is spearheading the program with the vision of centralizing entrepreneurship in small pockets in the university.
Jain said he’s looking forward to working with Sheats and what the partnership will bring for the people on campus.
“[The Hub] is more focused on more founders [and] entrepreneurs. I'm more focused on anybody who's doing anything creative. But we saw a natural pairing there in terms of ‘we want to grow Wisconsin as a place where people built things.’”
Jain is hoping Priority Labs will have a cohort each semester moving forward. He’s aiming to be as open as possible, and for as many people to participate.
Currently, the program is application-based — due to his managing team only being himself — but Jain doesn’t want this to just be something he wants.
“I want this to continue and I want this to grow,” he said. “I want it to be a place for [participants] to showcase what they're doing because I feel like everyone knows that students work hard, but nobody knows what else they do behind the scenes. That I think deserves to be seen.”
The Fall 2026 will be from Sept. 25 to Oct. 4 and applications close Sept. 20.
