Home   ›  spotlights

Fledgling business ready to fly

Spotlight
12/04/2011 11:41

When Miami students Robert Maylack and Josh Green observed a degree of apathy amongst their chapter members at Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, they didn’t see a problem, they saw an opportunity. The two-year pursuit of this opportunity has culminated in a viable business that the two seniors will seek to build aggressively after graduation in May.

"A lot of our fraternity brothers were unhappy with our chapter," said Maylack, an Interdisciplinary Business Management major. "For a while we thought this sense of apathy was due to a lack of effective leadership, but it wasn’t. It was a lack of the proper tools."

This observation was the impetus for Maylack and Green’s entrepreneurial effort, Virtual Chapter.

Virtual Chapter is an online management platform for student organizations, mainly collegiate ones. The services, provided free of charge, include management tools such as group calendars and attendance tracking; finance tools that bill and track dues; and communications tools like email, text messaging and directories.

These services, according to Green, a marketing major with an entrepreneurship minor, "empower student leaders to run their organizations more effectively while reducing apathy – one of greatest problems student organizations face."

Maylack and Green didn’t have to go it alone however, as Farmer School faculty members and the school's entrepreneurship curriculum helped them shape their idea and incubate their start-up.

"There are two aspects to how we help the students: the applicability of coursework and the availability of advisors," said Mark Lacker, Markley Visiting Executive Professor. "With Robert and Josh, however, it wasn't 'class first, then become inspired and pursue it.' They saw a need and really started this by themselves."

Virtual Chapter is emblematic of the entrepreneurial focus the Farmer School has developed over the years. "The school is putting an emphasis on experiential learning," said Lacker. "We’re saying, 'Roll up your sleeves, get to work and learn that way.' All courses expect students to learn by doing."

Towards this end, each year the school brings in more than a dozen real-world clients with real-world problems to solve. One case in point is Major League Soccer team Sporting Kansas City, which asked Farmer Students to devise its 2011 marketing plan. The plan is being implemented this year.

Another part of the program is the Red Hawk Hatchery, which assigns cohort groups to work on entrepreneurial projects and puts them through their coursework as a team. One notable success of the Hatchery is PharynMed. Farmer students put together a full business plan for the company, which aims to manufacture and sell a medical device that suppresses the gag reflex. The plan won a Cincinnati-area business plan competition.

"Students have actually started businesses whose plans were developed here," said Lacker.

Such is the case with Virtual Chapter, which was originally conceived in 2009 when Maylack and Green were sophomores. Two years later, the company has about 50 client organizations on the Miami campus and is currently expanding to seven other schools.

Success didn’t come without a few bumps in the road. "At first we tried an alpha test with three chapters on a subscription basis, charging them about $2000 per year for the service," said Maylack. "We found that there were so many people involved with approving this kind of budget decision that we couldn’t land clients quickly enough to make a real business out of it."

So Virtual Chapter switched to a different revenue model. The company now generates revenue though affiliate marketing, payment processing and selective advertising. Its founders "started by mocking things up and bouncing ideas off an inner circle and other frats and sororities," explained Lacker. "They understand that success in business comes through an iterative process."

Virtual Chapter’s founders aim to focus on growth and business development. "This summer, we’re going to go out there and fund raise in earnest," said Maylack, who noted several tangible sources of funds he asked to keep off the record. "We’re confident we can raise between $1 million and $5 million."

Whether or not the Miami seniors are on the tail of the next Facebook remains to be seen, but with a large dose of ambition and an equal measure of education and help from the Farmer School, they’re going to find out.

Content maintained by External Relations