Over 30 students participated in 3 Day Startup (3DS), a program where students learned about entrepreneurship and pitched ideas for startups to investors and mentors.
The event, which took place from April 21 to April 23, was sponsored by Birchmere Ventures, Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures and the Student Government Association (SGA).
3DS is a nonprofit organization that brings entrepreneurs to colleges and teaches students how to create their own businesses. The organization has hosted over 300 programs at campuses around the country and has launched 119 companies since its founding in 2008.
Junior Simon Barnett led efforts to bring 3DS to Hopkins. He worked with Kasim Ahmad, the venture coordinator for student projects at Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, to organize the event. Barnett explained that college students often don’t know how to break into entrepreneurship ventures.
“Students are in a system of education that is very linear where you take exams and you turn things in and graduate,” Barnett said. “Things like entrepreneurship that are very lateral and very nonlinear become very mystical.”
On Friday, each participant gave a one minute pitch for their startup. Then students were put into groups where they voted on the ideas that they felt had the best chance of realistically succeeding.
Ultimately students selected six startup pitches. The finalists included SWAP, a homework help app; VeggieBox, a vending machine that grows vegetables; SendIt, an app that compares prices on re-selling websites; BarGo, an app that looks up prices at bars; BAE-O, a health drink; and BarberFleet, a mobile barber shop for college campuses.
Students then set out to interview and survey potential customers.
Volunteer facilitator Jeff Lavine said that the customer discovery process is often challenging but helps students to understand if their ideas will be viable.
“The idea is to go out and validate your ideas before you spend all your money and take all your time,” he said. “Let’s have the customers have input ahead of time so that you know you’re doing something that people will want to buy.”
During the customer discovery process, many students had to change their initial plans significantly. Senior Selma Ahmed, who wanted to create a drink called BAE-O, explained how her idea changed after customer discovery.
“I was planning on pitching it as a high fiber drink... but after we did our customer discovery we realized that most people aren’t educated about what fiber is and what it does,” she said. “We realized that our customer base has to shift and be more like a general thing than just fiber-based.”
Barnett said that failure is an important part of the startup process but is difficult to learn in traditionally academic settings.
“It’s very experiential,” he said. “You have to endure failure as a key component in succeeding. It’s something that is very difficult to capture in a classroom environment.”
After the customer discovery process, students then discussed their projects with entrepreneurship mentors. Ahmad, who also served as a mentor, said that they aimed to help students hone their ideas.
“[Mentors give] them recommendations and insights based on their experience and general problem solving technique... to help them formulate a pitch that is feasible and makes sense,” Ahmad said.
On the last day, entrepreneurs, investors and Hopkins faculty came to see the final showcase. They also gave each group professional advice. Many students said that they would continue to build on the projects they had started during the weekend. Ahmed said that she learned more about entrepreneurship and what it takes to start a business.
“I’ve always been confused about business because it seems like it’s intuitive, right?” she said. “You have a product and you sell it. It’s not as simple as that.”
Ahmed also felt that the 3DS program gave her a better idea of how to create a successful startup.
“What I hope to get out of it is broadening my horizons and lessening that skepticism that I had because I’m actually doing it in practice,” she said. “I have someone really telling me how you determine what your market is.”
Freshman Jamie Chen felt that the 3DS program was rewarding and informative.
“Initially, I was disappointed that I would have to miss Homecoming and a weekend of festivities for this event,” she wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “Now that it’s over, I can confidently say that the things I gained here were totally worth it. I can honestly say that I made two great friends. Our team will hopefully be working on our startup idea this summer.”
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