shefska.com

Category: Entrepreneurship

  • I Don’t Understand LinkedIn

    Recently I have found myself more active on LinkedIn. The professional social network is strange web-space for a naive 19 year old to explore. The more time I spend on LinkedIn the more I have come to question its purpose.

    As a tool for professional networking, LinkedIn falls short. Yet, as a platform for users to gain popularity, promote skills they may or may not actually have, and portray an online facade, LinkedIn works quite well.

    The popularity contest

    A week after I signed up for LinkedIn I had over one hundred requests to connect. These were mainly from acquaintances from high-school. I declined more than half. I am not self-righteous, I simply wanted to maintain the integrity of my profile.

    My mindset was the opposite of my peers. I thought, “LinkedIn is intended to be for professional use. I will only connect with people I work with, do business with, or who I genuinely want to be part of my ‘network’”. Almost three years later I have 66 connections – I’m practically nonexistent.

    The mindset of my peers is drastically different. Generally LinkedIn users ages 16-24 years old hold one of two mindsets. Either a; they created a profile and no longer use it, or b; they connect with anyone they have ever interacted with. Middle ground is hard to find.

    LinkedIn is not useful for those who create accounts and never update them. For these people, LinkedIn serves no immediate value – rather it is a tool they may come back to use in the future, when “professional networking” seems like a good idea.

    Group b are power users who work diligently to connect with many people. These users are also overlooking the possible value of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is transformed into a popularity contest. I have heard my peers refer to the, “race to 500”. Connections on LinkedIn are perceived as a valuable measure of ones self-worth. When in actuality the majority of the people you “connect” with don’t know a thing about your professional life.

    I have 66 connections. Those 66 people know me. They know what I like. They would vouch for me, support me, and most importantly put in a good word for me if I asked.

    What is the point of having a surplus of connections? Am I naive to think that your true connections will get lost in the sea of names and profile pictures?

    Skills & endorsements

    Bragging about yourself is a good thing, and in certain professional contexts it is necessary.

    LinkedIn allows users to promote the skills of their connections, and displays a users “top skills” on their profile. It is perceived from someone viewing a profile that the information in the “top skills” section is forthright, accurate, and honest.

    The value of the top skills section is derived entirely from the integrity of the people promoting another users skill-set. Which begs the question, why would someone go out of their way to falsely promote someone else?

    The answer is not very scientific, rather it is simply an extension of the popularity contest discussed above. Power users regularly trade “promotions” with other power users to boost the number of people who have promoted them.

    From my profile you get the sense that I know a little bit about web development, WordPress CMS, and search engine optimization. This is a fair assessment of my current skill-set. My most promoted skill has the endorsement of 4 people – I must not be very good at it.

    What is the point of having people you do not really know promoting skills you may or may not have? Again, am I to naive to think that this is a recipe for disaster?

    Where there is value

    From my perspective I fear that most all of LinkedIn’s value has been corrupted. Thankfully, the social network has made a recent acquisition that can alter the course.

    With the purchase of Lynda.com LinkedIn has gracefully entered into vertical integration. If, (this is a big if) LinkedIn can successfully become a resource to learn skills online they can then leverage their fledgling professional social network site.

    Imagine the profiles of my peers filled with certificates from online courses. A balance of “promotions” from other users and verifiable certificates of skills would be a powerful resource for potential employers.

    Yes, as it stands, LinkedIn has morphed into an online popularity contest. A virtual world where the number on a users profile means more than the words of a few.

  • Starting to Develop An AngularJS Side Project

    I have been urged by my peers to learn AngularJS in recent weeks. At work our in house application uses Angular and the other developers would like for me to be able to help maintain it.

    With this in mind I have recently begun programming a new side project to learn and practice AngularJS.

    The idea

    The idea for this project was entirely inspired by a problem I frequently run into. When I am at home I religiously go to the gym. When I am away from home (on vacation, visiting family, etc) I never go to the gym.

    I always plan on finding a fitness center near the hotel I am staying at. Unfortunately, that never happens. Scouring Google search results for “gyms near Reston, VA” always proves a waste of time. Google finds a few gyms near-by, but does a poor job helping me sign up for a one week membership.

    Having repeatedly not been able to find a suitable gym with a reasonable one week pass I have decided to create GymFinder (the name is not set in stone).

    Users open GymFinder in their browser and put in the zip-code they will be travelling to. GymFinder searches through a massive database of fitness center across the world and returns those that are within a specified radius.

    Results also contain meta-data, such as the size of the gym, the equipment available, and the price for a one week pass. GymFinder helps people find the right gym when they go on trips. And if it doesn’t do that, then at least it will help me find a gym when I go on vacation!

    The tech

    After consulting with other developers at work I have decided to use a fairly simple stack to create this application.

    As mentioned above AngularJS will control nearly all of the application. Ajax requests will be done with Angular and a simple PHP server side script will call data from our mySQL database.

    The GymFinder app will be a single page and take full advantage of AngularJS routing. There will be no user login or storing of data. Rather the application will be quite simple and only spit out results. This is simply for practice at the moment, more features will come down the line once I have a more complete understanding of Angular.

    The data

    The most difficult aspect of this project is collecting, verifying, and storing enough data to make this project useful. After looking into using the Google Places API it became clear to me that creating an independent database of fitness centers was the best option.

    The plan is to write some sort of script that will crawl the web and write to a csv file. A few websites such as FitLink, Directoryfitness, and Gymnearme seem to have all the data GymFinder would need (those websites have user interfaces that make then nearly impossible to use).

    Two options are being considered for the crawling script. Option one would be to use an open source PHP script, while option two would be to write a simple bash script.

    I am leaning towards writing a bash script. Bash scripting is fun, interesting, and has many practical applications at my work. Utilizing someone else’s PHP code does not seem like as much fun.

    Updates

    I will mostly be working on GymFinder during the weekend. As progress is made I will be writing updates and sharing code.

  • Don’t Trade Time For Money

    How much is an hour of your time worth?

    As an employee I am engaged in a trade with my employer. The employer and I have an agreement, a mutual understanding that my time is worth a certain amount of money. As an employee I am in the business of trading my time for money.

    The business engages in a different trade with clients. Rather than trading time for money, the company trades value for money.

    Trading value for money

    At the start-up company I work for pricing is determined by value provided. A client purchases one of our companies services for $xx,xxx. This price is representative of the value that the client is receiving.

    If billed hourly the clients price would have only been $x,xxx.

    If it takes our company 20 hours to produce or provide a service, and we charge an hourly rate of $100 our cost would have been $2000, and the clients price would end up closer to $5,000. That $5,000 figure is far below the price our company has determined based of value.

    When trading value for money the client is generally unaware of the time associated with producing or providing their service. They tend to think it takes a considerable amount of effort, planning and organization to produce or provide their service. The client focuses solely on the value they receive from their purchase. If the client receives that value then everyone is happy.

    Starbucks Coffee example

    Think of Starbucks Coffee Company and their pricing scheme. A large latte has a price of $3.95. Consumers spend that much for a cup of coffee from Starbucks because of the value they feel they are receiving.

    Starbucks has mastered the idea of process (a topic I covered recently) and can produce your latte in under 5 minutes. The cost to make the latte is under $1, and Starbucks churns out hundreds of thousands of these coffee’s everyday. Amazing, right?

    The employees at Starbucks agree to trade their time for money. Starbucks takes advantage of this by creating a simple enough process that the employees can create value. Then, Starbucks profits.

    Why it works

    Scaling a business in this fashion has two immediate and obvious benefits. First, with process in place a business can function with less employees. Second, with value based pricing the business ensures they are charging a high/justified amount to every customer.

    Greater margins on every sale, and operating with a leaner staff is a perfect formula for long term success and sustained growth.

    Read more about this subject on Patrick Mckenzie’s blog.

  • Creating Process in Business

    Scaling a business requires process. Large, highly profitable organizations master their craft and charge a high premium for their services. These companies minimize cost by creating systems for which things get done.

    Creating process is a milestone for a start-up company, because process implies that you have a product or service that is in demand. To increase the likelihood of successful growth and development the organization must standardize the way it produces their products.

    Process also reduces and minimizes error. When something is done incorrectly and a mistake is made it is easy to place blame on an individual person. The organization as a whole bears the responsibility for an error made by one of its employees, yet internal mistakes tend to be placed directly on one person. Process helps eliminate this while also exposing the true reason why errors in production occur.

    Process in Practice

    Recently I have been working on producing a plethora of HTML email templates for a large client. Frequently I have been making errors in production: typo’s, line-spacing issues, cross email client compatibility – each of these errors has plagued my work. In an attempt to reduce these errors and create a more efficient production flow, I have employed the 5 Whys Root Analysis technique.

    The 5 Whys is a simple, straightforward and easy to use technique that helps individuals and organizations find the root cause of an issue. As Wikipedia states:

    The primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a defect or problem by repeating the question “Why?” Each question forms the basis of the next question. The “5” in the name derives from an empirical observation on the number of iterations typically required to resolve the problem.

    Here is how I used the 5 Why’s to find a solution for my problem.

    1. Why did the email template have errors?
    Because our developer overlooked his errors.
    2. Why did the developer not find his errors?
    Because the developer relied on the account managers to find his/her mistakes.
    3. Why do developers rely on account managers?
    Because developers do not have a procedure for testing.
    4. Why do developers not have a testing protocol?
    Because testing takes away time from development.

    After the first four questions, it became overwhelmingly clear to me what the issue and subsequent solution were. Both developers, and account managers need a testing protocol.

    Since time is hard to come by, developers should have a concise testing protocol and checklist that aims to find technical issues with the code. While account managers should have a similar checklist that looks for grammatical, spelling, and design errors.

    Before any final file is sent to the client it must go through these two independent tests. This will initially be a time consuming and tedious procedure, yet over time it will become a part of the process, one that ensures that the company’s reputation maintains its form.

  • 5 Things I’ve Learned Working For a Startup

    For the past four months I have been working as a web developer and graphic designer at a small start-up company near Washington, D.C. I have noticed, and come to enjoy five specific aspects of working at this small startup company.

    1. There is always something to do.

    A startup company should have one constant problem – too much work. Too much work is a not so subtle sign that growth is occurring. (I am painting in broad strokes, but you get the idea).

    As a developer and designer I am constantly producing client work or developing features for our in house application. This is a good thing.

    Everyday I watch as our company grows and expands.

    If you represent growth as a function, then working tirelessly would be the result. Which is true, yet it also means that what we are producing is working, and not only that, it is working well enough that more and more people have interest. This is meaningful, and powerful. If I was not intrinsically motivated to develop I would not last long at a startup.

    2. You will always have the opportunity to learn.

    Working with a small team of talented professionals helps you grow individually. If you work at a startup you will learn something new that applies not only to your work life, but to your life life.

    I constantly ask the lead developer at our company questions ranging from IDE’s and languages to general organization and code modularization.

    At a startup your coworkers invest in helping you.

    This mentality is bread into the culture of startups. We have hired new employees since I arrived and I have consistently been running to my neighbors desk to help out whenever I can.

    Teaching, learning, and growing with one another is a crucial aspect of a successful startups culture.

    3. Your voice is heard and will carry weight in discussion.

    At a startup company the title on your business card does not matter. Whether you are “junior developer”, or “chief technology wizard” your voice will carry weight in discussion.

    At 19 I can offer a different perspective then some of my older coworkers, and much to my amazement (initially), they listen and (on occasion) put in place what I suggest.

    If you have a good idea and you share it, your peers will listen.

    4. The team makes decision.

    When decisions are made there is no ultimate decision maker.

    At a startup you work to avoid belittling, or editing something without any purpose. At larger organizations higher-ups can and will intentionally alter a design solely to leave there fingerprint on the process. At a startup you constantly avoid this. The team makes decisions with one purpose in mind – how will this most benefit the customer/user?

    5. The team is only as strong as the weakest link.

    Consistently working with the same group of people can prove difficult. To avoid stress and maximize communication everyone must be equally engaged and focused on the task at hand.

    In this small of a setting it becomes obvious if someone is not pulling their weight. This drags down the entire group and can have extremely negative impacts on the team.

    To avoid this a startup must try and help bring these people up to speed, or move along. As the team grows maintaining a high level of work ethic, skill, and dedication is key.

    Join the discussion on /r/startups.

  • How do you know if people want what you want to build?

    Validate, prove, justify, confirm, support… I can distinctly remember my experience at StartUp Weekend Pittsburgh a few months back being summed up with these five words. Over the course of the 3 day all you can design, code, and build event I was constantly bombarded with mentors who preached the importance of validating the need for your product or service.

    My team envisioned an application for kids to turn their school notes into catchy songs. The thought being teenage kids can memorize lyrics because of a catchy beat – why can’t they memorize all 50 state capitals the same way? We did not place in the top three for the contest, and I think I know why.

    We fell prey to a common problem in the start-up world. We never got any outside support for our idea. All of us (most of us) thought the application was cool, practical, and could be the start of something disruptive and revolutionary, yet we did a poor job asking potential users for their feedback. Feedback is the most important ingredient for success, even at the very beginning stages of a start-up.

    Our mentors pleaded with us to get some source of outside verification that there was a need, or at least a want for a product similar to ours. We did, kind of. We created a survey that vaguely asked questions related to our application. 50+ results later and we felt we had a strong argument for why our product needed to exist.

    We faced a few issues with this mindset. First, we had tunnel vision – we specifically looked for survey results that were positive and used those to further our judgement. Second, we surveyed family and friends – these people intrinsically want to support you and their results were undoubtedly skewed.

    This problem was not independent to my team, every start-up at StartUp Weekend Pittsburgh used a survey to justify their product or service. You think I am kidding, take a look at any of the teams twitter feed on the Saturday of the event…

    This is a problem, and problem that is even more magnified two months after the event. All of these “start-ups” are dead, they are not businesses, they are webpages that were thrown together in a weekend.

    Building something that is useful, needed, and appreciated is one of the many difficult steps in starting a company. The lean start-up methodology makes it seem rather simple – build something, measure how people perceive and use it, learn from that data. Unfortunately this is much more difficult in practice then it is in theory.

    The first step before building, measuring, and learning is to validate. The mentors present at Start-Up Weekend where right – getting validation of your idea by potential customers or users is key. Conducting a survey of family and friends is not an applicable way to achieve this.

    In a world where we have Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Reddit, I ask, why do we not have a “Do you like this idea”. Imagine a community where people discover, share, and converse over ideas. Not products, not news, not gifs of cats, but ideas.

    For the past week I have worked on creating this community. Would You Want is the start of what will serve as a necessary tool in creating a start-up. Users up-vote ideas, the best go to the top, and entrepreneurs can get a quick, informal justification for their idea.

    I will post semi-frequent updates on the development of the site, and a more in depth post as the public launch nears. .

  • Applying to AlphaLab (and not getting in)

    AlphaLab is the premiere start-up accelerator program in the Pittsburgh, PA area. Applications for the winter term at AlphaLab where due at the end of October. Below is my application. I did not get accepted into the program, take from this what you want.

    Questions are in bold. I have omitted the “team” section because my partners did not want their information shared online.

    Current Status / Plans

    Where are you in terms of prototype or product development?

    GymBro has been on the build, measure, learn track for the past 10 months. We processed our first order in January of this year. I will be the first to admit that we were in over our head at first and we lost about 6 months of progress from February to August when I decided to freelance out the development of our back-end to a senior at Pitt.

    This student was not committed to the project and as a result all deadlines were missed and we went without a fully functional website for those 6 months. The fact that we even got orders during that time amazes me. The way that we can win over customers from Bodybuilding.com is to offer an impeccable user experience, and to this point we haven’t.

    I also learned a lot from the freelancing fiasco. When I made the decision to freelance out I thought I was getting the back-end infrastructure that would sustain GymBro for the next five years. What I learned during that experience was that first, infrastructure is most important. You can have the greatest idea and solve the most meaningful problem in the world, but if your process for solving it does not function then it is useless. We spent six months being useless. Second, you only need that “back-end for the next five years” when you have a service that you are going to stick with. At this point GymBro could iterate from a subscription service to a mobile app, so building a flawless back-end is currently irrelevant.

    Since those issues I have rebuilt the website with WordPress which I am very comfortable with. WordPress allows for me to do front-end development while taking care of the back. In the few months we have been working off of “new.gymbro.co” we have had an extremely successful promotion, processing over 60 orders in 2 days and generating over $2000 in revenue. We have also learned from customer feedback that our new platform is an absolute step in the right direction, although not perfect.

    What have you learned from direct interaction (including online) with your target customers/users? What are the next hypotheses you plan to test?

    I use two main tools to interact with customers and potential customers. First, I send emails everyday to customers asking them about their experience and making sure everything went smoothly. I also ask how and why they chose GymBro for their order, and if they currently have any fitness or supplement related problems they are facing.

    In addition to these emails I enjoy doing market research through surveys. I have set up in front of the gym at Pitt and asked questions as people walked in and out. I have tried to understand purchasing habits, stimuli that entice purchases, and the perceived knowledge that consumers have for the supplements they take.

    From all this, the next step is to provide consumers with a service that takes the stress out of having to make recurring purchases for supplements. Through our 10+ months of sales we have learned that selling subscriptions to supplements is tricky. Consumers do not take supplements as religiously as intended and as a result we have had customers cancel their subscription because they still had a large quantity at home.

    We need to be able to provide subscriptions that arrive every two months, three months, four months. We need to allow for users to change flavors, sizes and brands. If we provide a seamless platform for consumers we will be able to make a subscriptions platform work.

    Yet subscriptions are not the only answer. PushforProtein (pushforprotein.com) is a MVP I built this past weekend that serves to make supplements purchases from mobile devices as simple and seamless as possible. Applying a “Yo” like application to supplements is another idea. Imagine an application where customers literally pressed a button on their phone to order a product they take regularly? That is what I am attempting to test with PushforProtein.

    Another idea could be for our company to send push notifications to users by tracking supplements usage as it relates to data collected by ever expanding fitness tracking devices and software. As more and more people track their workouts and daily caloric expenditures there is an opportunity to suggest what supplements would most benefit them and offer a platform for those purchases to be made. Imagine a user has our application installed. After tracking a 5 mile run on a hot, humid day we can suggest to them the perfect supplement to take right as they finish. We could provide real-time supplement advice to users.

    Technology is outdated when it comes to the supplement industry. There is rapid growth and development when it comes to fitness and nutrition, yet supplementation is lagging behind. We need to fill that void.

    What do you anticipate to be the most challenging technical hurdle(s)?

    Changing constantly. I am only capable of so much (average front-end development, and some WordPress wizardry), we will need to watch every movement on our website and optimize.

    Also, application development for IOS and Android is something I have no experience with, yet something I would be willing to learn.

    Where do you expect to be by the end of AlphaLab? What are the interim goals and timeline that will help you to get there?

    In one sense I want GymBro to be at the next stage of legitimacy during AlphaLab. The day we did $2,000 in revenue GymBro felt more legitamate, the day we get funding it will be more legitimate, the day we create jobs we will be more legitimate. This cycle is intended to go on until my mom stops harassing me to do my chores when I am at home.

    In another sense I want GymBro to mature and genuinely solve a problem. This company was founded on the “cool idea principle”, we weren’t solving a problem, we just thought subscriptions were cool. Now, as time has gone on I want GymBro to solve something important and meaningful. That is part of the build/measure/learn feedback loop, we still need to pinpoint exactly what problem and solution is needed. During the 20 weeks at AlphaLab we will pinpoint our problem, build the solution and constantly test and validate what works. By the end of those 20 weeks we will have a service that others will try and copy because it fits the market space so well.

    Product-Market Information

    Describe your company in 2-3 sentences.

    At GymBro we are empowering consumers by providing efficient and effective solutions for purchasing dietary supplements.

    What market are you targeting? Describe your initial customer/user.

    GymBro serves tech savvy, health conscious individuals. Our initial customer is someone who is interested in fitness and open minded to purchasing physical goods online. We acknowledge the growing market for female supplementation, and we anticipate a name change occurring.

    What problem are you solving for this customer? Describe the initial use case.

    GymBro aims to offer a new level of convenience for consumers. Currently we provide a simple, honest, and “quality first” approach which differentiates us from our cluttered and claim filled competition. We envision expanding on this and creating a service that provides insights into proper supplementation based off of real time activity tracking. We need to stay true to our quality, simplicity, and convenience to fully differentiatae us from our competition.

    What makes you truly unique? Why will your customer change from the status quo or choose you over a competitor? Please identify competitors as applicable.

    GymBro must offer a seamless user experience, and unparalleled user on-boarding. BodyBuilding.com is the mainstay of the retail supplement industry, yet with Stripe Checkout, Apple Pay, and more advanced checkout platforms coming to fruition BodyBuilding.com is at risk of being taken over by a similar, yet more user friendly company.

    In addition to this, technology is rapidly changing the way people track their own personal fitness and diet, yet that same technology is not being applied to supplements. GymBro will offer this advanced technology and modern user experience to gain users and grab market share.

    Other competitors include:

    • GNC.com
    • TigerFitness.com
    • MuscleandStrength.com
    • Amazon.com
    • Vitaminshoppe
    • A1supplements.com
    • Walgreens

    More specific competitors include:

    • Jackedpack
    • Jacked-in-a-box
    • BuluBox
    • CampusProtein.com
    • GamePlan Nutrition

     

  • GymBro Progress Report

    About two weeks ago my company, GymBro processed more orders than our cash flow could handle. This was really, really cool. For anyone who has started up a company this is the type of problem you never want to run into, yet are somewhat accepting of. I’m here today to outline the path we’ve taken to grow GymBro to this point.

    Background

    A little background about myself before we begin. I am a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh, I’m studying Business Information Systems and Information System Design. I’m not really sure what all that means but I work on programming and business, win-win right? My partner, Martin is a Pitt sophomore as well, finance major, I think. We co-founded GymBro in our dorm room during the second semester of last year, January 2014 to be exact.

    Developing our idea

    We didn’t really see a problem that we set out to fix, rather I pitched the idea of a subscription service for bodybuilding supplements to Martin. He liked it, kind of. Neither of us were really sure if people wanted a subscription service, but I built a website to test it out. This was our assumption, and we had to try to get real people to either validate it or prove to us it was false.

    Three months of testing on our MVP proved that there might be potential. We initially laid out our website like any other supplement website (check bodybuilding.com if you are unfamiliar). It was cluttered, there was sensory overload, cognitive dissonance at every turn, and then when you wanted to buy something you had to enter extra information such as the length of your subscription, how frequently you wanted it to come, etc. The whole process of ordering a product from our website took too long, too many clicks involved.

    At this point our customers were my mom, Martin’s friends from high school, and a few of my buddies at Pitt. Seriously, we sold product to maybe 15 people. The number is irrelevant, it is the feedback you get from these people that is invaluable. We learned the following…

    • People want simple
    • Our subscription service suggests “convenience”, our website needs to emulate that
    • People want the truth
    • People buy supplements with goals in mind
    • People want quality

    For us, as college freshman we went into this process with hundreds of assumptions. It is only through talking with your early adopters and initial customers that you can learn how to refine your product or service. This is an ongoing process. The list above is a short summary of what we learned from our initial launch. The next step was to take this information and apply it. We freelanced out to a Pitt Senior who is an extremely impressive back end developer. This was a mistake. We trusted a college senior to build our website on a freelance contract. What we didn’t think about was the fact that he was a college student, and (no offense to other college students reading this) he didn’t care. He didn’t share the vision that Martin and I had. He made a website, essentially another MVP. There were errors, bugs, issues left and right, but somehow, someway we increased our customer count close to 100 over the next five months. This was more friends and family, we had yet to get a customer that we didn’t know through someone.

    Gaining traction

    That all changed about two weeks ago. Martin and I both knew that if GymBro was ever to scale we would need a different website, something simpler, easier to use, more convenient. We decided to have a promotion on a new product in the market to drive a lot of traffic to our design prototype and watch in real time how users reacted. The result was our highest grossing two days of sales ever.

    Our objective with this new design was to give customers the opportunity to checkout and complete their purchase in under 5 “clicks”. On our old site, the minimum was 17 to just get to checkout… We watched in real-time as people went from the homepage to checkout, to confirmation email. We had people checking out, giving us their hard earned money in under 5 clicks, and it worked.

    Again, the same process as before with my mom would occur after a purchase-we asked all these people about their experience. I actually gave people my personal phone number in the confirmation email, and I ended up having multiple conversations about what we did right and what we did wrong. We are currently taking all this information, which was surprisingly positive, and applying it to what we do next.

    That is the process, learn from your customers and adapt.

    Where we are at today

    We have refined our concept and vision. GymBro started out with no problem to solve. We have learned from all of our interactions with users, and customers that there is a problem, a problem that we are getting closer to solving every day. People want what was outlined above, they want a service that is simple, modern, and honest, not Bodybuilding.com, not GNC.

    Martin and I are college sophomores who are working a field we are extremely passionate about, learning everyday about how to better our service and fill the void that our target market sees. It helps that we love supplements and that we love working out-we want to create this solution for ourselves as personal users as much as we want to as businessmen.

    My bedroom serves as our warehouse, we have had freight trucks come to our college house to deliver goods. Martin and I spend a few hours each week working on GymBro, either packing boxes, calling sales reps, or sampling products. We love doing this, it’s fun, and it keeps us out of trouble.

    What’s next

    AlphaLab is a startup accelerator in Pittsburgh, PA that Martin and I plan to apply for the winter term. I have already gone to a few information sessions and met with the program manager. The response we get when we talk to people about GymBro and our philosophy is resoundingly positive.

    The hope and goal is to get a seed investment to put towards improving our distribution channels, branding, and our online infrastructure.

    Hopefully this time next year I will be writing a post about our series A round of funding, but until then this is all I have to share.