Making the Most of a Painful Experience
Entrepreneurs make difficult situations inspiration for new products.
Emily Ennis - Activist Entrepreneur
When Emily Ennis (‘20) first started the Entrepreneurship Major and the Runway Program, she had a vague idea of what she wanted to do. She was passionate about wanting to speak to high school students about distracted driving, because this is something that affected her personally. She is enjoying how she can apply what she is learning in her classes to turn that passion in to her own business.
The Runway Program helped her form an idea into a functional, funded business. The mentors helped her build the idea of speaking to high school students into an entire program with engaging activities and a virtual reality simulation. The mentors also helped her brainstorm ideas on how to add more value to the product’s users and begin building the minimum viable product (MVP). She used Google Cardboards and students’ own cell phones to test and validate the idea. She used the feedback to make a compelling pitch for funding in the Runway Program.
Emily’s business was awarded $7,500.00 in equity-free seed funding, which she is using to build the virtual reality simulation and purchase VR headsets. Emily now has a contract with a local school district’s drivers-ed program and market validation from nearly 1,500 students
RUNWAY PROGRAMEntrepreneurship Major
