{"id":1121,"date":"2019-06-13T14:10:30","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T18:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/microsites.engineering.nyu.edu\/cie\/?p=1121"},"modified":"2019-06-19T17:04:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T21:04:01","slug":"2019-summer-startup-sprint-its-a-wrap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/microsites.engineering.nyu.edu\/cie\/2019-summer-startup-sprint-its-a-wrap\/","title":{"rendered":"2019 Summer Startup Sprint: Its A Wrap!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Barr Morgenstein <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the last two weeks, the 2019 Summer Sprint teams have been working intensively with the mission to build their own startups. With enthusiasm and much effort, the 14 teams, consisting of 32% female co-founders, presented their work from the last few weeks. Some needed to reassess their target markets, some had to redefine their entire model and examine the \u2018pains\u2019 they were looking to solve, but all have learned important lessons and skills in entrepreneurship.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first team to present was team \u2018codin\u2019 (previously known as \u2018CODie\u2019) co-<\/span>founded by Jiayun (Cecilia) Zou (Stern ’20) and Koken Ishii (Tisch ’20). \u00a0The company, aiming to create a game-like education platform for basic coding, experienced challenges in defining and meeting the needs of their initial target customers. Fortunately, by experimenting with potential audiences and diving deeper into the market need, <\/span>codin <\/span><\/i>was able to shift and find possible adjacent opportunities with MBA students, young professionals, partnerships with universities and with non-native English speaker markets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Above: Koken Ishii from team \u2018codin\u2019<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Team \u2018RedCapper\u2019 \u00a0founded by Marnix Heuker of Hoek (Tandon ’19), Jonathan Sgouros (CAS ’16) and \u00a0Brian Brink (Stern ’15) are looking to provide a better and more efficient way for potential home renters to review real-estate listings using virtual tours. After testing their hypothesis with both brokers and consumers, the ambitious team decided that the startup should focus on consumers, the potential renters who are willing to pay for their service. The <\/span>RedCapper <\/span><\/i>team is looking forward to continuing their project with a positive outlook.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next, Emily Long (SPS \u201820) and Arahant Ashok Kumar (Courant \u201820) of \u2018PIVOTtag\u2019 showed how dedication and perseverance pays off. The team had to remodel their initial plan and target market completely, and found great opportunity within the hotel industry, offering an innovative solution for their luggage services. With the aim to provide safe and systematic tags to locate personal belongings, the team is planning to test pilot designs and close new partnerships within the next couple of months.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u2018ChoreBug\u2019 team led by Avante Price (Stern \u201822) and Jenni Funt (Tandon \u201822) wish to create an online platform that connects local high school students with community members in order to help them with different tasks such as moving, gardening and painting. Throughout the sprint coursework, the team was exposed to the existing competitors in the market and was able to interview and learn from different potential customers, workers, and students and better narrow their target market. The platform is now defined to offer its services to community-involved age 35+ mothers who wish to help local high-school students. With lower prices and added community value, <\/span>ChoreBug<\/span><\/i> is hoping to create 20% month-over-month growth and continue to gain nationwide exposure in the next 3-6 months.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>Above: \u00a0Avante Price and Jenni Funt (right to left) from team \u2018Chorebug<\/span><\/i>\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Team \u2018Heybor\u2019 co-founded by Kiola George, Tyler Benjamin (Gallatin \u201817), Oatlie Ramsay (Gallatin \u201821) and Felix Gaye (Stern \u201818) sought to provide a communication platform between buildings, owners\/landlords, and tenants. They conducted experiments and spoke with potential consumers and found that indeed there is a desire to improve communication within buildings. \u00a0The team will continue to work on segmenting its customers, defining the platform, and testing its viability.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Charles Le Pelley du Manoir (Gallatin ’19), Antowan Wallace (Stern ’19) and William Talley of \u2018Releasur\u2019 is an online platform aimed at connecting aspiring Hip Hop artists with the videographers needed for their projects. With the help of mentors, interviews with both artists and videographers in the industry, the team revealed the \u2018pains\u2019 they were looking to solve. This also helped them narrow their target audience down from producers, audio engineers, and videographers, to just videographers. The platform is now offering a transparent way for artists and videographers to schedule and conduct payments for services that are part of the video production process. With a running pilot and more improvement plans in the future, <\/span>Releasur <\/span><\/i>is excited for<\/span> what the future holds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next, the environmental and social oriented \u2018GROUNDED Upcycling\u2019 team led by <\/span>Parker Reposa (Gallatin ’20), Drew Enyedi (Stern ’20) and Preet Bhaidaswala (CAS \u201819) (who recently joined the team), presented a venture looking to reuse spent coffee grounds. With more than 125,000 tons of coffee grounds produced per year, the team is looking for a way to ensure that more of the grounds are utilized and less is gone to waste. During the sprint course, <\/span>GROUNDED Upcycling <\/span><\/i>decided to redefine their initial environmentally conscious and vegan target market and remodel the activity of cosmetic products. Interviews with coffee shops owners and managers provided meaningful insights which allowed them to pivot to their new proposition: providing value-added waste management services to small-mid size coffee shops.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Above: \u00a0<\/span><\/i>Parker Reposa, Drew Enyedi and Preet Bhaidaswala (right to left) from team <\/span><\/i>\u2018GROUNDED Upcycling\u2019 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Team \u2018Reecko,\u2019 co-founded by <\/span>Tiffany Patafio (NYU CUSP \u201819), Tushar Gupta (Fordham MBA \u201819), and Danijel Sofric (VP Data Analytics) want to create a web-based platform for new parents to consume baby products with reviews. They were able to learn that users\u2019 decision-making is heavily dependent on recommendations, research, and family members. More so, big supply companies often invest in learning about their customers, while smaller supply companies struggle to get such data. <\/span>Reecko <\/span><\/i>is currently planning to continue their experiments with potential users and to further investigate their proposal with marketing professionals. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018The Great Fantastic\u2019 founded and led by Kyle Bergman (Stern \u201819) invested significant time in market research and engaged with over 143 individuals! Kyle presented a The Great Fantastic\u2019s apparel, which is meant to be functional, comfortable, and provide a unique style statement for consumers who wish to express themselves through their clothing. The next steps for <\/span>The Great Fantastic <\/span><\/i>include continuing their market discovery, prototype creation and exploring financial funding from potential partners. <\/span><\/p>\n

Team \u2018Novelty Interactive,\u2019 co-founded by <\/span>Jason Charles (Tandon ’19), and Yael Ezer (Steinhardt ’18) went through both highs and lows in the past two weeks. The team initially sought to provide interactive educational tools for children, but experienced difficulties in its execution and customer targeting. While <\/span>Novelty Interactive\u2019s <\/span><\/i>future is uncertain, it is clear that they learned a lot from the process of becoming entrepreneurs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Talib Jafri (SPS ’20), Farva Jafri (CAS ’10), Daniel O’Brien, Nicholas Konieczko and Nicholas LaVelle founded \u2018Pondhop\u2019 in the effort to improve customers\u2019 experiences in restaurants. Their experiments on potential markets of non-enterprise restaurants provided a few key insights around customer rewards, and that enterprise restaurants may be a better fit. In light of their findings and new \u2018pains\u2019 they discovered in the restaurant labor force, the team decided to pivot and pursue opportunities and a new hypothesis focused on providing a better work force to restaurants. The <\/span>Pondhop <\/span><\/i>team is excited to test their new assumption, experiment, and hopefully start a customer pilot with the enterprise market in the next 6 months.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Team \u2018The Easiest Keto\u2019 co-founded by <\/span>Kyu Kim (Stern \u201820), Lauren McMullen (Northeastern University <\/span>\u201819), and Ebenezer Ackon (NJIT \u201815) worked diligently to segment their target customers. Aiming to help and encourage ketoterians\u2019 diets and provide support for embarrassments they encounter due to their lifestyle choices. Following the team\u2019s experiments, they understood that most ketoterians are not ashamed of their choices and do not need encouragement of that kind, but would highly appreciate a platform enabling them to track their diet and connect with other ketoterians. Having their new concept in mind, team <\/span>The Easiest Keto<\/span><\/i> is looking forward to testing a diet progress-monitoring platform and learning more about the Keto diet through upcoming community events.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>Above: <\/span><\/i>Lauren McMullen, <\/span><\/i>Ebenezer Ackon, and <\/span><\/i>Kyu Kim (right to left) from team \u2018The Easiest Keto\u2019<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The \u2018Miranda\u2019 team led by Sara Liu (Stern \u201822), Alberto Chierici (Tandon \u201822) and Sydney Cheng (Stern \u201822) (who recently joined the team), showcased their progress over the last two weeks. From their initial concept of a one-stop shop that provides insurance services targeted at independent insurance agencies, to a low cost, efficient fact-finding tool for P&C insurance agencies focusing on commercial insurance for SMBs. With 3 beta users on board and expected growth of another 3-20 users in the next three months, the <\/span>Miranda <\/span><\/i>team are excited to continue working on their startup.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>Above: Sara Liu from team \u2018Miranda\u2019<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last to present was team \u2018Exchange,\u2019 co-founded by Daniel Hyun (Stern ’20), and Krish Chelikavada (Tandon ’19). The team successfully marketed their interview training platform for aspiring SW engineers and received positive responses for their prototype experiment. The team is currently contemplating whether they should market their platform to other potential customers or focus solely on fresh SW engineers. <\/span>Exchange <\/span><\/i>is looking to raise funding and continue working and improving their platform.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Above: Summer 2019 Sprint Participants <\/em><\/p>\n

All in all, the day was an exciting exhibition of hard work, perseverance and passion from 37 aspiring entrepreneurs. From insurance to education, the teams chose to focus on vastly diverse needs and target markets. Keep an eye out for these young entrepreneurs as they take their next steps in pursuing their dreams!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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