Erik Gelcich
I take seriously the things people call dumb. That is where the best ideas hide.
I am a generalist who excels at taking ideas from 0 to 1: discovery, interviews, UX, design, development. My edge is turning new technology into an experience people can actually use, and seeing friction points nobody else sees.
- Based in
- Enschede, NL
- Languages
- English, Italian, French
- Open to
- Full-time & part-time in NL, internship in EU
A social feed for the one place where everybody is stuck, nobody knows each other, and everyone has a reason to be there: the airport gate.
A party game that lives entirely inside Instagram DMs. No app, no game screen - the website is only the lobby and the scoreboard.
Write a message, get back a random AI distortion of it. Not knowing what comes out is the whole product.
The social media for right here, right now. 1,000+ users, 800+ posts in the first month, live at Aalto University.
Live audience voting for pitching events - and a growth channel for Mimmo.
Audience-driven Q&A for panel talks. 50 questions became a 2-question flow.
Song requests DJs actually want - collected before the gig, zero signup friction.
All-in-one practice companion for conservatory music students. Tested by 80+ musicians.
Gate
2026A social feed for the one place where everybody is stuck, nobody knows each other, and everyone has a reason to be there: the airport gate.
A web app that turns boarding-gate dead time into somewhere to post and to meet the people waiting on the same floor - with an AI that interviews you into a better post.
The gate is one of the last moments in the journey where airports and airlines still have a genuinely captive audience, and it goes unused. In most terminals that audience is left staring at departure screens, watching the boarding door, or refreshing flight status.
External research on boarding (TNMT, tnmt.com/boarding-is-aviations-overlooked-innovation-frontier) breaks the wait down: 36% of passengers are simply waiting at the gate and 17% are on their phones, against 27% who dine or shop and 20% who explore the terminal. Around half the terminal is doing nothing in particular.
Three things are true of an airport at once and of almost nowhere else: it is extremely dense with strangers, anonymity costs nothing because nobody stays, and if you are flying there is usually a real reason why. That last one is the product - airports are full of stories that never get told, sitting next to people who would listen.
A feed of short text posts, plus a section for meeting the people in the terminal at the same time. Onboarding is a QR code placed in the airport itself: no install, and no account beyond a username and where you are flying. Because a blank composer gets blank posts, an AI asks follow-up questions and draws out the details a poster would otherwise leave out.
A working prototype. The by-product turned out to be as interesting as the feed: destinations plus posts give an airport a live read on what passengers are feeling and what is going wrong in the terminal - something a satisfaction survey sent after the flight cannot tell them.
AI-native CRM for HMD's sales team - less data entry, more selling.
TrailRadar: AR spectating for ultra-trail races, built on EU space technologies.
Real-time asset awareness for power-grid field crews - the VEO challenge.
Turned Harvia's IoT sauna sessions into a cooperative mystery game that builds healthy routines.
Prompt
2026AI-native CRM for HMD's sales team - less data entry, more selling.
With two teammates, we started from the salesperson's real problem: CRMs demand data entry and give little back. We designed an agentic CRM that proactively delivers context-aware action recommendations at every step - less like a database, more like having an analyst on the team. Won the HMD challenge.
Aalto's intensive venture-building program for the most driven founders-to-be.
Led ski groups of up to 13 people in English, Italian, and French - from kids to seniors.
Private chauffeur for a night club, working with renowned international DJs, like Bob Sinclar, Deborah De Luca, Hugel and many more.
Independent music production. Focusing on creating something unique and new.
Performed at bars, clubs, and sport events across Italy and Finland.
Worked in restaurants and bars, handling both front-of-house and bar duties.
Founder Sprint
2026Aalto's intensive venture-building program for the most driven founders-to-be.
Deep-dive modules, personalized coaching, and real venture building. This is where Mimmo was born: I worked in teams of 13 and 4, coordinated planning and execution, and pitched our progress to venture capitalists, startup mentors, and industry experts throughout the program.
Need one person to design it and ship it?
This site is the work sample: researched, designed, built and deployed by the same person. Including the parts you have not found yet.