Startups offer high risk, high reward
David Fincher’s The Social Network, which opened in theaters in 2010, painted the college startup scene as something fast-paced, risky and, most of all, exciting. It seemed like the movie compared the startup scene to gambling. Hit it big, and you can drop out of school and work on growing your startup. Fail, and you’ll regret not accepting that summer internship offer.
But every college startup story is different -— from the germination of the original idea to the challenges and successes that these startups might face. Jens Windau, co-founder of AIO Robotics, and Awadi Rathugamage, co-founder of Scholasphere Inc., give a glimpse into what it’s like being a student founder and entrepreneur. Windau is part of Viterbi’s Startup Garage, a 12-week technology accelerator program geared toward creating innovative digital media, Internet, software and hardware companies, illustrate these challenges.
AIO Robotics
Jens Windau doesn’t see many similarities between his experience at his startup and the one portrayed in The Social Network. Though he hasn’t actually seen the film, Windau explained comically, “All I can say is that we did not yet get into a lawsuit and we hope we won’t in the near future.”
AIO Robotics probably won’t, anyway. Windau and co-founder Kai Chang have taken two emerging ideas — 3-D printers and 3-D modeling — to create an all-inclusive 3-D printer. “In order to 3-D print, you need a 3-D model. And in order to create a 3-D model, you need to use 3-D modeling software, which only a small fraction of the population is using on a daily basis,” Windau said. “This is the reason why we came up with the idea to just integrate a 3-D scanner into a 3-D printer and offer the functions of 3-D copying and 3-D faxing.”
The Viterbi Startup Garage, open only to students and recent alumni, is just one of the reasons why being a student has helped Windau and his AIO Robotics team. And while access to resources such as designers, patent lawyers and seed funding from the program were helpful, as a student, Windau has been able to meet fellow students in his classes, some of whom he eventually tapped to be part of his team.
“We all have diverse backgrounds, which helped us do technical development and business development at the same time,” Windau said. “We are also all international students from Taiwan, China, Indonesia and Germany … [which] makes it easier for our company to quickly operate internationally.”
Despite how chaotic the experience has been so far, Windau is thankful to have started AIO Robotics while still in school.
“During college, a lot of people are still undecided as to what they will do with their lives once they graduate. This is a perfect time to find and convince people of your business idea and invite them to join your team,” Windau said. “Post-grad startups often have a lot bigger problems recruiting the right talents because they don’t have access to lots of young, diverse students.”
Even though AIO Robotics has formed its team and finished a working prototype, the journey is far from over. In addition to preparing a live demo in time for the annual Consumer Electronics Show, AIO Robotics hopes to start selling its first batch of machines by next year.
Scholasphere Inc.
After a friend told Awadi Rathugamage about how nice it would be for there to be one place to find scholarship information, he pondered the thought for a while.
“Being already familiar with the Common App for college admissions, I figured it would be great if I could take the list one step further and make a consolidated scholarship application,” Rathugamage said.
And he did.
Rathugamage met future co-founder Christian Vanderwall in a class taught by Ashish Soni, head of the Viterbi Startup Garage. Working with Soni, the two decided to pursue what would become Scholasphere Inc. together and ended up getting into the prestigious accelerator program.
Since they first started collaborating, the team of Rathugamage and Vanderwall has presented Scholasphere Inc. at the Startup Garage’s Demo Days alongside other startups, including AIO Robotics. The small but powerful team has debuted its official website to the general public and has its first provider-sponsored scholarship up on the platform.
Though Rathugamage agrees that being able to use the USC network and access valuable materials as a student is helpful, college startups are certainly not all fun and games.
“It’s a little tough to balance a full course load [especially as a senior] with startup activities,” Rathumage said.
The glamorous depiction of startups is, according to Rathugamage, not entirely accurate. Having a startup doesn’t mean instant popularity or wealth.
“The truth is that it is a steady grind week in and week out, where you are riding a roller coaster of stress and emotion as you strive to keep your company alive,” he said. Despite the late nights and the constant flow of work, however, Rathugamage regrets nothing about his experience so far. Under the guidance of Soni and the support system at USC, Rathugamage has been able to make one idea into a real, viable service.
“It is an incredibly fulfilling learning experience, and would I do it again knowing what I know about the journey now? Absolutely.”
Sara Clayton is a junior majoring in public relations. Her column “Tech Today” runs on Tuesdays.