QuinnPetersenHawkenProjects2022

Hey there! When I began this project three weeks ago, I had a vision. I set out with one goal in mind... get ESTIM8 going. It was through blood, sweat, tears, and laughter that my partner Jalen and I were able to get ESTIM8 to this point. We wanted to get our big idea off the ground. We wanted to get it to the point where we could go to an investor to invest. We had no idea how to do this. If it wasn't for our awesome mentor, John Ours, we wouldn't have gotten as far as we did. He provided much needed guidance. Our main goals were to improve the business plan side and the functionality side of things. I took over the business side of things. I spent hours on hours trying to learn everything I needed to before I could actually do it. I wrote a 20 page business plan and a few really good financial spreadsheets. I think this project was really good for me. I now have the option to continue to pursue ESTIM8 as a business, which I plan to do this summer. Constantly reworking docume...

Hey there! This is my last blog post for my senior project, and I finally feel like I have done something really really cool. The two main things that I was focused on for this project were the revenue model/GTM strategy and cost+operating model for ESTIM8. I wasn't sure how I was going to tackle both of these things, but I ended up creating two major final documents that I can use to express both of these things to investors. I created a 16 page google document called ESTIM8 Business Plan and a very intricate google spread sheet called ESTIM8 Financial Projection Model. I have worked on both of these things throughout the project and I started with almost nothing. Jalen and I had a lot of stuff from our Entrepreneurship course, but it didn't feel real. We hadn't validated how we were going to make it a real business. Our idea was good but now I feel like our business makes sense too. I genuinely feel like we could go get an investor and have this thing making some serious...

Hey there! I have been really busy since my last blog posts, but not much has changed. It isn't necessarily new work or new projects, but rather refining the things I have been working on. I have spent the last few days really improving my spreadsheet. It is not the most interesting work, but there is a lot to learn and fix. I like the challenge of having to research and also incorporate expenses and revenue together. It is a very intricate spreadsheet at this point. Its purpose is quite simple. We want to show investors that our hypothetical, but realistic business model would make plenty money and give them a good return on their investment. I have met with Mr. Ours plenty of times and we constantly look over it and edit it to challenge our assumptions and make sure everything lines up correctly. A good financial projection spreadsheet where you have validated your assumptions is ultra important to the success of finding an investor. Although our spreadsheet is good and seems v...

Hey there! I have sat in on some more meetings at Paragon, but besides that it has been more of the same thing. Trying to start a business is grueling stuff. I love it though! Not everything has a right answer, so sometimes it is difficult to have to keep trying and trying to find one that is almost perfect. The two main things I have been doing are a financial model spreadsheet and a business plan. These are both necessary to starting ESTIM8 because we have to convince investors to... well, invest. Things are taking longer than I anticipated, so I doubt we will be 100% ready to go to investors by the end, but I think we will be really close. Sitting at a desk each day and working on this startup has been both really boring but somehow really exciting. This is our idea and it will only become real if we want it too. I will share some more details about our idea because I think the readers will find it pretty interesting. Our first hire will be a Chief Operating Officer. They will be...

Hey there! I have been pretty busy with trying to start a company. I don't know how to, so there has been a lot of trial and error. This means I have spent most of my days just working on something then shooting holes in it to pressure test it. I will share my work with you because it is pretty interesting. ESTIM8 is an application for college students that automatically generates their schedules based on accurate homework time estimations. Colleges/universities will implement our system in to their LMS, such as Canvas. When students submit their assignments, they will enter how long it took them to complete. When teachers post the assignment, they will enter how long they expect the assignment to take to complete. When students open ESTIM8 on their phones or computers, their assignments will be loaded into their schedule with their assigned estimated time blocks. Our magic scheduling automatically finds time for each assignment to be completed before its due date. All the stude...

 Hey!     The past few days have been challenging, but very promising. After getting comfortable in the office and with the project's goals, I was really able to start getting work done. I started off by trying to get my thoughts and ideas onto paper. This meant I wrote the first four pages of a business plan for ESTIM8. This included things like our history, how it works, what problem we are fixing, and other miscellaneous details about who/what we are. It was beneficial to get this on paper because it allowed me to narrow in some details and focus on the project.       Jalen and I decided that by the end of the project we want to get to a point where we could present our whole concept to an investor to get it all started. Before we get to that point, there are many things I realized we still have to figure out. Jalen and I split up the tasks into two parts. I will tackle the business side of things, such as how we will make money, figuring out if we ...