This weekend, 53 young entrepreneurs designed and presented business ideas to potential investors for the seventh 3-Day Startup.
3-Day Startup, held at Startup Aggieland, is an event that challenges students to develop ideas for potential businesses on teams of about 10 students. Starting Friday, the teams were given 72 hours to compile market data and create a mock business presentation, and finalized pitches were presented before potential investors Sunday.
“Everyone in our group had specific skills in different areas, which really helped because it gave us a variety of skills working together to complete one goal,” said Nisha Nadkarni, visualization freshman and 3DS participant.
Mentors of various industry backgrounds, from experience in launching corporations to creating companies in robotics, were instructed by Blake Petty, director of the Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship, to advise and assist students in staying on task. Mentors and participants were taught about the Business Model Canvas, a template for developing business models.
“This Business Model Canvas is the scientific method taken into a business context,” said Richard Lester, executive director of Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship.
On Saturday participants conducted customer interviews to find out whether or not their business idea had a market. Using customer feedback, the students improved their ideas as needed. At 4 p.m. Sunday, the students presented final pitches at HUB Collaborative in front of potential business investors for further feedback.
One of the business ideas presented was “Proposology,” an app that aims to help men come up with their soon-to-be fiance’s dream proposal. The app, created by a group headed by Kathi Hogan, third year A&M law student, started off as an idea for a grocery store app and shifted to a proposal consultor.
“Between the rings and the photographers and the romantic atmosphere, there are some things that men tend to forget,” Hogan said. “ Our solution is Proposology.”.
Other business ideas included a 3D braille printer called “Braille Box,” which aids visually impaired people in labeling pill bottles and other essentials, an app called “Hook,” which connects users with groups of people interested in similar activities, and “VFlow,” which allows users to store videos in the cloud to eliminate storage limitations.
Allison Kernher, business administration freshman, headed the team that created “GiftHer,” a website that gives men gift ideas for their significant others based on quizzes. Kernher said participants in 3DS appreciated their experience and learned valuable lessons.
“The most important lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t fall in love with something you’re doing,” Kernher said. “You have to be able to change it to meet what the market demands, not what you want it to demand.”
Joseph Buckle, engineering freshman, said one of the main things he learned through 3DS is that it’s okay to fail with an idea.
“It sounds strange, but if you’re going to try turning an idea into a company, you don’t want to spend all your time and effort on something that is a bad idea,” Buckle said. “ If it’s going to fail you want to know that it’s going to fail early on.”
