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Priorities:Washington University in St. Louis Student Priorities

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= <~~parsererror~~ span style="~~display~~font-size: 14.6667px; font-family: ~~block~~Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ~~border~~background-color: ~~2px solid~~ transparent;">Overview = {{#~~c77~~Widget:Youtube|id=OZr5S00c6MQ}} <span style="font-size: 14.6667px; font-family: Arial; ~~padding~~color: rgb(0 ~~1em~~ , 0 ~~1em~~, 0); ~~margin~~vertical-align: ~~1em~~baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: ~~#fdd~~transparent; ~~color: black~~">~~===~~ Bear Studios, founded by Peter Delaney, Will Papper, and Avi Felman, is an on-campus incubator to help students found startups. Bear Studios receives idea submissions from undergrads and faculty members, and helps the best ideas launch into full businesses.<br/span> ~~===~~

= ~~Overview~~In the course of our work, we have identified crucial gaps in Washington University’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. First of all, students with ideas do not know where to look to find the right skills. Finance or Marketing majors, for example, do not know how to find Computer Science majors who are seeking to join startups, and vice versa. It is necessary to have a way to match skills on campus. Furthermore, once students have a viable team assembled, they do not know what steps they should take to launch their business and often get so bogged down in details that they fail to make progress. Having a mentor network of experienced entrepreneurs who have attended Washington University in St. Louis would help guide students toward launch. After students launch, they often have little to no capital on hand. Small amounts of seed funding (below $5,000) would give a vital boost to their businesses. Finally, they often have very little time to dedicate to their startups during the year due to obligations from classes. For this reason, a summer program should allow them to work on their ideas independently while receiving a stipend to allow them to live in St. Louis. =

= Priority #1: Skill Matching =

It is necessary to match up appropriate skill sets between students at Washington University. Students need to know where they can find students who are actively looking to join startups, so that they do not waste time chasing leads that do not want to join their ventures.

</span>Spring 2017:

We tested an analog prototype of a web-based subscription service where people can input their skills and be contacted by people with skills they are looking for (an "EHarmony for forming startup groups"). We would need to verify that non-students will have sufficient incentive to also subscribe to this service as potential mentors for a project.

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</span>Spring 2016:

We have already developed and sent out a Skills Survey to students, that asks about the skills they currently have (business, marketing, technical, sales, etc) and the skills they would like to learn.

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We have received around 50 responses, but we need to promote the survey more widely to reach interested members of the student population. We also need to share it among the graduate programs at Washington University, since our entrepreneurship program is one of the few that allows both undergrads and grads to participate.

Rishil.mehta

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