We are very excited to feature Allyson Yoder as this week’s Campus Celeb! She has fully earned this prestigious title and the campus recognition given her recent success at Startup Weekend, which was an on-campus entrepreneurial initiative that took place the weekend of February 28th. Essentially, “Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures”. Students who participated in the event put their social life on hold for a weekend to take advantage of an opportunity to pitch a startup ideas to peers forming teams around the most well-recieved concepts. Allyson’s talented team of six (pictured below) consisted of both Greek and non-Greek students: Abby Purdum (Junior, Kappa Delta), Marissa Horwitz (Junior, Phi Mu), Rachel Seminara (Senior, Delta Zeta), Maggie Ledbetter (Senior), and Stuart Yamartino (Junior).
In roughly 33 hours over the course of the weekend, this group brainstormed and collaborated to conceive the business idea for an application called RecruitHer to aid in the grueling and overwhelming process of recruitment. Her team brought vibrant passion and collective vision to their final presentation to entrepreneurial leaders who were highly impressed with their business prototype and awarded them first place. We were lucky enough to snag Allyson for an interview and put her in the hot seat to learn a little bit more about her initial drive to participate in Startup Weekend, particularly as an Management Information Systems major. Below, you’ll find out the stages involved in the development of RecruitHer, future plans for launching the application, the 5 things she’s most passionate about in life, and her personal definition of success!
HC: What ultimately made you decide to want to participate in Startup Weekend this year?
AY: There were a few things that made me decide to participate, but the biggest influence is one of my best friends. This semester he chose to play intramural hockey, which is something he’s never done before, because he wanted to challenge himself. It sounds kind of cheesy but that inspired me to want to do something to push myself out of my comfort zone!
HC: Did you do anything in particular to prepare or motivate yourself for the weekend? Were there any classes you’ve taken at Miami that prepared you for the challenges that Startup weekend presented you with?
AY: I’m a business major so I have taken some classes that have given me an idea of how businesses run but I honestly felt completely unprepared for the weekend walking in to it. And there wasn’t exactly anything I felt I could do to prepare! I just made sure to go in with an open mind—willing to try new things and take risks—and that’s a huge part of what entrepreneurship is all about.
HC: Did you feel overwhelmed at any point by the weekend, and if so, how did you handle those feelings?
AY: Overall I think my team handled the whole “start a business from the ground up in 48 hours” thing pretty well! But when I did start to get overwhelmed with everything we needed to do I would ask my team what needed to get done and we’d make a list of everything we needed to do that day. We also had some awesome mentors (both peers and professionals) who would help us figure out which tasks were most important.
HC: Can you describe the stages involved with developing your and your team’s business plan for RecruitHer and what does the RecruitHer application entail?
AY: Startup Weekend starts with pitching—anyone with an idea gets 60 seconds onstage to describe a problem, how they want to fix it, and what kind of team they need. In our case, Abby pitched the idea for an app to help fix the crazy process that is sorority recruitment. Then the team formed around her idea because we were passionate about it or saw some way we could be helpful. Then we built a rough business model and sent out one of those surveys everyone hates to take so we could get some validation that our problem is worth fixing! We also talked with a bunch of sororities’ recruitment chairs, presidents, and some members of PanHellenic to see what they would want out of the app. Eventually Stuart (our token male team member and programmer) got to work making a mobile site (you can actually see what it does for yourself at online!). Lastly, we had to put together a final pitch for the judges so they could see all that we had accomplished, and then Marissa and Maggie got on stage to re-explain our problem and solution!
HC: Congratulations to your and your team on winning first place! What was going through your head when you were announced as winners, and what were the benefits you received for earning first place?
AY: I think we all had a feeling that we had done really well, but there were definitely a ton of great ideas and teams so none of us were expecting to get first place. We were all pretty shocked and kept saying that we couldn’t believe we actually won! It was also a really good feeling for the four of us who are Greek to be able to show that we could come together, from four different sororities, and prove some misconceptions about sorority girls wrong, such as that we are ditsy or catty.
As the winners we received a VIP package to a Miami basketball game that we attended this past weekend as a team, $250 toward MOO for any promotional materials we needed to order, free legal consultation, a ton of help and resources available to us through Miami’s entrepreneurship department, and awesome t-shirts and entrepreneurship department quarter-zips!
HC: So…what now? You mentioned working on copyright for your idea, but in addition to that, what are the next stages for launching this application and what is the timeline involved in this developmental process?
AY: We had a team meeting this past week to decide if we’re all on board to continue on with this—we’ll basically all be picking up an unpaid, part-time job in addition to everything we already do—but everyone is on-board to keep the company moving forward! Next we will be meeting with a lawyer for our free consultation, we’ll definitely need to do a ton of market research and we’re going to reach out to some of our mentors from Startup Weekend for guidance along the way. Ideally, we’d like to be able to pilot the app at a different school that does fall recruitment later this year!
HC: What other extracurriculars are you involved in on campus apart from being a proud sister of KKG?
AY: Aside from Kappa, Cru takes up most of my time. I’m in a bible study and have a few leadership roles including helping to plan and leading our fall retreat and spring break trip. I also work at Dividend$, so if you come through the salad line often, you’d probably recognize me!
HC: Apart from being a successful app builder, what else are your hopes and dreams for the future?
AY:I’m not entirely sure—I’m pretty uncertain about the future but also pretty okay with that uncertainty. I feel like I have a few options—I’m interning with a company called Vizion Solutions this summer, and I’ve been considering doing mission work for a while too. Luckily with all my uncertainty, my faith in God gives me confidence that I’ll end up in the right place!
HC: What’s one thing that would surprise people about you, and why?
AY: I feel like I’m a pretty open book, but I guess something that often surprises people is that I’m introverted. I’m usually very social so people expect me to be an extrovert but I really enjoy taking a lot of time to myself. My mom used to get a little concerned for me in high school because I spent so much time by myself in my room! I also love when its nice outside and I can walk around outside alone just thinking and praying and enjoying the nice weather.
HC: What do you do to unwind after an exhausting day of classes and extracurriculars?
AY: I don’t even know. I don’t think I ever really get a chance to wind down with everything I have to do! But when I do get a chance to breathe I usually clean my house. Its super calming for me to clean and organize things, so I’ll do my housemates dishes for them and straighten things up. It actually helps me sleep to have everything in order—sometimes I can’t go to bed until my room is perfectly organized!
HC: What are 5 things you’re most passionate about in life?
AY: I’m a Christian, and I’m incredibly passionate about my faith and I think that talking to other people about what I believe is really important, and also interesting, so that would probably be my greatest passion. Additionally, my family and friends of course, and then to be honest I have to say organization. That’s probably a weird thing to be passionate about but it’s hard-wired in me! And most of the time I’m passionate about school. That’s not always true though, it kind of depends on how I like my classes, but I know that my schoolwork is important.
HC: Where will you be jetsetting to over Spring Break?
AY: Like many college students, I’ll be headed down to PCB in Florida! But I’m actually going because Cru has a conference there over break. I’ve been the last two years and it’s always a super worthwhile experience and I grow in my faith a ton. It’s not your typical college spring break but I wouldn’t trade it for anything!
HC: What’s your definition of success?
AY: I feel like success is totally different depending on the person and the situation. So for me to be successful that would mean I accomplished a goal, beat a personal best, or took a step of faith/tried something out of my comfort zone—like with Startup Weekend. Success wasn’t being on the winning team, it was that I did something to push myself out of my comfort zone and grew as a person through that!