What urbantech startups can Booth MBA students build in 10 weeks? 2018 Edition
This is our third year building and teaching the “Entrepreneurship: Urban Opportunities and Solutions” course at the University of Chicago Booth School and the results keep getting better. You can learn more about the course and our motivations in a recent edition of the Chicago Booth Magazine.
This workshop course is 10 weeks of research, design, prototyping and startup building to address urban challenges. As with the last two years, the student teams built solutions based on a thoughtful understanding of the problem sets and shaped for business viability, impact and ability to build a software prototype (we used Bubble.is to make this part easy).
Each week, we introduced the teams to visiting speakers and coaches, and this year we partnered teams with mentors (generally founders). We’re grateful for the participation of Shaina Doar (Sidewalk Labs), Mike Rosengarten (Persista), Scott Crouch (Mark43), Sidney McLaurin (LimeBike), Lisa Abeyta (AppCityLife), Hardick Bhatt (Amazon), and many others who visited, coached and mentored this quarter. We are especially grateful for the help of Jason Goode, formerly of NYCEDC and now a UofC grad, for his hard work in ensuring this year’s class ran smoothly.
Special thanks to Neerja Balaji, Emmanuel Straschnov and the rest of the Bubble.is team for their continued support of our class.
How did the teams do?
What software startups can Booth MBA students possibly build in 10 weeks?
— This is the skeptical question I was asked last year that prompted the first edition of this post.
Below are the high-level statements, screenshots and demo links for the solutions the teams came up with. The final presentations and written reports will knock your socks off.
Street Cred
“Chronic homelessness increased 12% between 2016–17. One of the key drivers for prolonged homelessness is a lack of stable, gainful employment. Yet 68% of all US jobs are low-to-middle skilled jobs, and 40% of US employers report struggling to fill low-skilled jobs. Employers across Chicago consistently emphasize that soft skills are the main determinant of longer-term retention. However, most people find it challenging to convey their soft skills through traditional resumes and job applications. This mismatch in the labor market is a significant waste of resources, both in terms of unutilized labor as well as ineffective hiring processes, and cannot be fixed by policy alone.”
“StreetCred empowers low-income individuals with a newfound way to demonstrate their soft skills and credibility. Job seekers earn credits by completing actions within three key soft skill categories: Consistency, Collaboration, and Drive. StreetCred’s platform connects job seekers, workforce development programs (WDPs), and employers to create a more inclusive and efficient hiring process.”
SWOT — Securing Women on Transit
“Many women feel uncomfortable moving around cities for fear of being harassed. Reporting tools for sexual harassment in urban and university settings have low utilization rates and need to be modernized and made user friendly in order for meaningful data to be collected and used for improvements to public safety and public transportation.”
“SWOT provides a service to women in transit and makes the data collection process for sexual harassment streamlined. Our platform is an interface for victims of harassment to easily and quickly share their experiences and then distribute this data to the organizations in charge of public safety for that specific region. Users of our mobile reporting tool also benefit from features such as location sharing with friends, access to public safety officials, and the ability to view aggregate data showing which areas have historically been problematic and should be avoided.”
RecycleHero
“Chicago creates nearly 1 million tons of waste a year. Chicago has a particularly dismal recycling rate of 9.7% (as of 2017), particularly when compared to other US cities such as Seattle (recycling rate near 60%). We wanted to consider how we could motivate these city tenants to change their behavior and increase their trash sorting.”
“RecycleHero incentivizes tenants of urban multi-unit buildings by allowing them to collect points when they scan their recyclables in their homes. These points can be redeemed for rewards such as rent credits or local restaurant discounts from their building management. Building management is in turn incentivized to increase adoption of RecycleHero and offer attractive rewards because they are paid for usage of the app. CPG companies pay for the granular, real-time information gathered by tenant scanning to better understand the customer usage of their product and the competitive landscape (e.g. demographics, consumption habits). RecycleHero takes a percentage of that payment, and the rest goes to building management.”
RideAlong
“The average American uses their car only for 55 minutes/day. Despite 85% of Chicago households owning at least one car, more than 50% use a method other than single occupancy driving to get to work, an indicator of low vehicle utilization. Despite declining car usage, antiquated parking laws continue to require developers to build a specified minimum number of parking spots for every residence built. This has resulted in an excessive amount of urban land being used for parking. Estimates indicate that there are 800 million parking spots in the US and 14% of urban Los Angeles is set aside for parking.”
“With reduced reliance on privately owned cars and an increasing shift towards ride sharing, we aim to provide a unique car sharing solution — one centered around existing neighborhoods, particularly apartment buildings.
RideAlong will lease, operate, and maintain cars and charge the property management a fixed monthly fee per car. Each resident will be entitled to a certain number of “car use hours” at no extra charge. The cars will be fully integrated into the apartment as an amenity — they will be parked in the apartment parking lot, shown to potential tenants when come to view the apartment, the apartment residents portal will include a scheduling software, and apartment keys will unlock the cars. Essentially, RideAlong cars will be no different from on-site gyms or laundry rooms in apartments. We believe that urban residents will also be more comfortable sharing a car with people they know — their neighbors — and less likely to be careless with a shared car that they need to return to their apartment.”
FeedMore
“There is a large number of urban residents who are considered food insecure, there are donors of food, yet there is a significant amount of food waste that results from operational challenges in the food donation and distribution space.
At the food bank level (akin to a wholesale distributor), these challenges are primarily around supply and demand matching, inventory and capacity management (currently done manually), as well as delivery optimization. Additionally, there are significant costs incurred related to waste management.
At the community-partner level (e.g., food pantries, community centers, faith-based organizations), these challenges are around capacity and inventory management, volunteer/labor management, and logistics/food transport, which are exacerbated by constrained budgets.”
“A two-sided market where donors, food banks, and community partners interact in a “network” structure. Donors “ping” the network with the specifics of their proposed donations (type, volume, logistics requirements) and are matched with food banks based on their capacity and demand (which is simply the aggregate demand of their community-partners). Once matching occurs, the food bank’s inventory management system is updated automatically reflecting the incoming donation. Once sorting and allocation occur at the food bank, community-partners then have visibility around the delivery process, allowing them to optimize their storage space and distribution process (i.e., managing volunteer-base and fleet, if available), thereby limiting waste, its associated costs, and the inefficient use of resources.“
Bicicletea
“Almost 30% of the urban population in developing countries live in underdeveloped neighborhoods, representing around 880 million people. One of the problems these neighborhoods face are long and uncomfortable commute times, which are associated with difficulties in job searching, happiness and health. These low income periphery neighborhoods frequently have very difficult access to city centers, where most of the job opportunities are found.”
“Bicicletea aims to connect these low income periphery neighborhoods with cities by reducing the commute times and introducing a cheap, healthy way of transporting to reach key transportation stations. This project is developed for community members that today have long commutes and walk a great time to get to their transportation systems and for governments trying to increase the use of bikes and the social inclusion of periphery areas.
Bicicletea is a bike transportation system specially designed to tackle with difficulties found in low income neighborhoods. Stations are designed to adapt to different adversities such as floods, lack of electricity, lack of space and security. Today’s biking systems are designed for different neighborhoods and governments find it difficult to implement these same systems in other neighborhoods, leaving part of the population and usually the most in need, without access to a cheap and healthy transportation means. Bicicletea comes to close this gap.”
Ohana
“Since 2009, the U.S. housing market has seen growth in demand far outpace growth in supply. Even with 600,000 new housing units produced in a year; this is outstripped by the formation of 1 million new households in a given year. This housing shortage has translated into a sharp increase in the cost of for-sale and rental housing in cities across the country.
While Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) have been recognized as a potential source for new housing supply, the U.S. has yet to see a major uptick in their construction. In cities where it is legal to build new ADUs, homeowners cite the potential for rental income as the primary motivation to build an ADU. At the same time, homeowners indicate that a lack of financing is the most significant barrier to building an ADU. This finding is striking given the virtually unlimited amount of financing available for the construction of more traditional forms of rental housing. To date, there has yet to be a solution that fills this gap in the marketplace.”
An Ohana loan is a home equity loan that takes into account the additional income and value created by an ADU rental. Ohana loans are approved in situations where it is clear that an ADU will add significant value:
• A market where there is a housing shortage and increasing rents
• A homeowner with strong credit and interest in additional rental income
• A construction budget that allows for an attractive ROI
The Ohana loan is secured by the homeowner’s primary property and the ADU, providing significant collateral. The Ohana loan is further de-risked by having all rental payments made directly to Ohana, which, in turn, will remit the positive cash flow back to the homeowner.
CareMatch
“Urban parents with young children need child care in order to work or go to school. That said, finding child care that matches their schedule and preferences can be extremely difficult, particularly for parents that specifically want home-based child care. Currently, parents primarily find child care through word of mouth and sometimes use such such as Yelp and Craigslist. Further, in many communities, the supply of child care does not meet the demand. At the same time, many home-based child care providers are earning limited profits and there is significant idle capacity in their home-based child care business.”
“CareMatch is an app that connects parents and child care providers. Home-based child care providers can market their business and input their schedules to highlight current openings. Parents search nearby providers that have openings when they need childcare and research program characteristics. When they find a provider with an opening that matches their needs, they are able to contact them directly to interview them and see if they would like to place their child in their care.”
Employmentor312
“In 2017, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that ~70% of Illinois’ youth experience joblessness, a rate that is ~16x the state average. In Chicago’s Cook County, there is an estimated 21,500 youths aged 16–24 without a high-school diploma who are disconnected from both school and work opportunities. Young, black men are most disadvantaged in Chicago. 85% of this 16–19 year population are unemployed. Statistics quote a loss of $197,000 in taxable income over the working life of a youth without a high-school diploma. The importance of youth unemployment is unarguable. However, so often the focus is on finding a job, but what is often overlooked is how hard it is to keep a job.”
“Employmentor312 is an application-based texting platform that matches newly employed youths in Chicago with mentors who are working professionals in the city. Mentors are expected to serve as a positive role model for youths, demonstrating and coaching on the necessary skills required to succeed in the workplace. Mentors are selected on an application basis and will be required to meet in-person periodically to establish trust and build an enduring relationship. Consistent engagement between mentors and youths is expected via daily texts.”
WasteLess
“40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. is wasted. American restaurants alone waste approximately 571,000 tons of food each year. Meanwhile, 1 in 8 Americans face hunger on a daily basis.
Food waste in restaurants results in nearly $18.7 billion in lost revenue each year and adds 381 million tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. When you invest in WasteLess for your business, you’re doing more than just saving money: you’re saving millions of Americans from going to bed hungry and our planet.”
“WasteLess is a web-based application designed to help independent restaurants reduce their food waste through smart data analytics. Each year in the United States, between 30 and 40 percent of the available food supply goes uneaten, and at least 10 percent is lost at the retail level. Recycling excess food prepared at restaurants is difficult due to regulatory and logistical constraints. WasteLess allows restaurants to prepare just as much food as they require to meet daily demand — eliminating the need for costly recycling programs. WasteLess will be geared towards small and independent restaurants which often lack the infrastructure, time, and funding to invest in an in-house predictive analysis tool. Similarly, many existing solutions use only the restaurant’s own historical data to make daily predictions. WasteLess aggregates data from peer restaurants, proximate restaurants, and publicly available information like traffic patterns and road closures to make a more informed and accurate prediction, ensuring that WasteLess restaurants can prepare only what they need — and waste less of what they don’t.”
The Housing List
“There is a staggering lack of affordable housing in cities throughout the United States, yet the demand is huge. In many cases, this lack of supply is due to the fact that affordable units aren’t as profitable as market rate housing for companies to develop and manage.”
“The Housing List is an online platform that increases application transparency and eases affordable housing property management. With an eligibility screening tool, property managers will be able to find eligible tenants for available low-income housing units more efficiently. This will make the eligibility process dynamic and transparent, with an easy to manage waitlist and useful communication tools.”
