UNC-Chapel Hill student technology venture SP0T takes first place in the inaugural Carolina Challenge Makeathon
A nook at the edge of lake where the light from the sunrise strikes the water perfectly. The fallen tree trunk, slightly tucked away from the path, which doubles as an ideal bench for a picnic. Or a hole-in-the wall restaurant whose kitchen sends out culinary delights that far surpass exterior expectations. Finding these kinds of hidden spots recommended by friends via mapping technology is the idea that drives the app and startup company SP0T. Yet, on the evening of Thursday, April 11, UNC-Chapel Hill students and company founders Kenny Barone and Tyler Trocinski found themselves in a location that was anywhere but hidden.
As they took the stage in front of several hundred people as the first of three teams to make their speed-round pitches at the Carolina Challenge Makeathon finale, Barone and Trocinski explained what sets their idea apart. Their explanation to the crowd ultimately catapulted them to their top-place finish in the competition.
“SP0T combines social media and location discovery and allows you to have the experience of finding something cool around you quickly,” said Barone. “It matches that with peer-to-peer recommendations and sharing content with your friends.”
And while it’s traditionally time consuming and difficult to uncover the best out-of-the-way locales, as Trocinski notes, SP0T makes the whole exploration process a breeze.
“Your friends’ recommendations are highlighted on the map so that, no matter where you go, you can quickly and easily find places that you like and that your friends love,” said Trocinski. “SP0T’s map is customizable so that you can filter out what it is that you’re looking for so that you don’t waste time searching.”
SP0T’s makeathon pitch came during the final installment of a year-long series of Carolina Challenge events and experiences designed and led by the Entrepreneurship Center at the Kenan-Flagler Business School through the financial support of the Stedman Family. In the fall, the center held its annual Carolina Challenge Pitch Party, which drew 225 students and 81 student venture teams that pitched their entrepreneurial ideas to a host of judges.
Then, the inaugural Carolina Challenge Makeathon kicked off during a one-week sprint in February created through a cross-campus partnership between the Entrepreneurship Center and other programs, including Innovate Carolina, BeAM, Carolina Housing, CUBE at the UNC Campus Y, and others. During the week, 37 teams came together to build physical and digital prototypes, while attending makerspace trainings, app labs, workshops and office ours with tech and entrepreneurial mentors. In total, the Carolina Challenge Makeathon awarded more than $12,000 in awards to its student teams.
The progress made by Barone and Trocinski during the initial makeathon week placed them in the top three teams and qualified them to compete in the finale, which took place during the 2019 Innovation Showcase hosted by Innovate Carolina.
“We were thrilled to partner with Innovate Carolina this year for our final Makeathon event,” said Callie Brauel, Carolina Challenge director. “The Innovation Showcase provided a natural next step for the teams that were most serious about moving forward after the week-long Makeathon in February.”
The two other finalist teams included Phoenyx, a venture that is upcycling vinyl billboards into fashionable handbacks and other products, and SaniStation, a maneuverable pod that houses basic hygiene essentials and handwashing water to improve public health.
“Our team selected three ventures that were willing to dive all in on their business model and pitch deck for the weeks leading up to the showcase, and a half dozen other Makeathon teams were selected to have exhibit tables,” explained Brauel. “This exposure to so many investors, business owners and other professionals was truly an invaluable experience for our students. They will take the lessons learned and feedback from this event and apply it to their ventures over their summer fellowships at Launch Chapel Hill.”
For SP0T, which joined the latest cohort of companies in the Launch Chapel Hill startup accelerator in spring 2019, next steps include building the business and honing the technology. And in doing so, Barone has designs on achieving even more than making technology that works well and makes life easier. The team’s goal is to make peoples’ lives better, too. It’s a tough challenge given the negative impact that social media has been shown to have on the happiness and mental health of regular users.
“We want SP0T to be the first social media that has a positive impact on users’ mental health,” he said, citing that 61 percent of Instagram users who use the app for more than 50 minutes a day say that app has a negative impact on their happiness.
Barone sees his company’s technology working a different way with different results. “SP0T focuses on real-world action and actually going and doing things rather than scrolling through feeds and seeing the world through other peoples’ eyes,” he said.
| UNC-CH