NUvention Web+Media teams pitch startup concepts after six months of work
By Ashley Austin (MSJ ’19)
NUvention Web+Media students pitched their business ideas an audience of entrepreneurs and investors after six months of market research, customer development, prototyping, and product testing.
The final pitches, held June 11 at the McCormick Foundation Center, were presented to an audience of faculty, students and the class Advisory Board, made up of experienced entrepreneurs and investors. Five of the six teams included master’s students from the Medill School’s media innovation specialization.
Here are the teams’ stories.
FoodXP
FoodXP is a niche marketplace that connects people interested in dining and drinking with hosts who offer their expertise through a culinary experience. These experiences include cooking classes, food tours, drinking/music, and social food meetups. FoodXP arose from a desire by food experience hosts to have more personalized capabilities than are provided through Airbnb Experiences. Team members were able to recruit four hosts to the FoodXP service during the class time frame.
GrowIY
GrowIY serves as a consulting company for do-it-yourself cannabis home growers, connecting novice growers with expert consultants. GrowIY also provides the technology to allow growers to track their plants.
Many cannabis home growers keep notes about their plants’ growth, but potential customers told the team they would like a digital tool that includes information provided by GrowIY about how to avoid common growing problems. During testing, GrowIY attracted more than 20 users for the growing app and 10 users for the consulting service.
Juice Pooch
Juice Pooch provides live event attendees with portable phone chargers available for rent and for sale. The inspiration for this company came from personal experiences that several Juice Pooch team members and interview subjects had with dead phones, leading to unsafe situations and a breakdown of communication with loved ones.
Juice Pooch operates through a network of contractors who are paid through commission on their rentals and sales at these live events. During the course of this class, Juice Pooch tested and gained customers at Northwestern University’s Dance Marathon, TedX NU, Snake Pit, The Bean, a Chicago Cubs game, and Dillo Day. All together, Juice Pooch attracted 46 customers. The team was a semi-finalist at the Northwestern University’s VentureCat competition.
Loop
Loop is a professional relationship management tool, allowing users to develop their professional networks by integrating with LinkedIn and email. Users can monitor the degree of engagement with various contacts, allowing them to determine whether or not it is time to reach out to an acquaintance.
Loop seeks to gain revenue through a premium subscription service. During beta testing, Loop attracted earned 108,171 social media impressions.
ProFashion
ProFashion provides wardrobe suggestions for young Asian professional women, leveraging artificial intelligence technology to match the contents of a user’s wardrobe based on photographs of the clothing.
This company charges a subscription fee and affiliate marketing commissions from clothing retailers. ProFashion obtained ten beta users and built a WeChat community of people interested in the app.
Wearever
Wearever offers a clothing rental service largely focused on young female travelers, providing stylish and affordable fashion at a fraction of the purchase price.
This company’s initial target market is “fashionistas,” Instagram users with 800–10,000 followers, who value how an outfit will look on social media. Wearever tested its product at Northwestern’s 2019 commencement, attracting 45 paying customers and 80 more who joined a waiting list.
