There are so many different paths to success in the world of entrepreneurship. This allows each and every entrepreneur to focus on what they are passionate about and find a way to solve an existing problem in that sense. From there, they can pave their own way to success.
This is what student Matt Friedman learned and exemplified in his Entrepreneurship class, ENT 360, at Arizona State University. The class is built to teach entrepreneurial skills to business and engineering students and have them delve deep into a specific issue and build a venture from it.
Friedman, a Junior in the business school at ASU, studies Management and Entrepreneurship. After brainstorming ideas of things he was passionate about he came up with the topic of traveling. This is what brought to life OverLay. One of the main topics discussed in the classroom setting was the idea of market research. When creating a venture, the most important part is to base the ideas on the customer. Instead of coming up with a solution and pitching it to potential consumers, we learned in class that it is beneficial to come up with a problem, and interview the potential customers to find out what they believe to be the viable solution.
“OverLay started as an application to make wait time during a layover more tolerable, but after each interview, I learned something new and the idea of the application changed”, stated Matt. His project switched projections many times until it ended up being what it is today, an application to help seniors build a travel plan customized to them.
After interviewing so many different people, a clear target group who had time, interest, and money, came about and it was older people looking to travel. Friedman learned to be willing to switch tracks to fit the needs of the target audience. He plans to continue working on OverLay and growing his venture.
Click here to visit OverLay’s website: https://matthewfriedman608.wixsite.com/overlay
Click here to connect with Matt Friedman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-friedman-/