For our Barrett Honors thesis, our team decided to complete the Founders Lab thesis pathway. Founders Lab offers Barrett students the opportunity to spend their year working on developing entrepreneurial ideas into innovative new businesses by designing not only a business model, but the marketing, sales, and financial models of it as well. This team-based thesis/creative project empowers Barrett students to find solutions to a challenge and gain valuable experience launching a new business of their own.

A Skunkworks project is the name given to a small team of individuals leading an innovative undertaking, and conducting research and development outside of the normal scope of an organization. With this concept in mind, our team of six individuals was tasked with finding and conceptualizing innovative solutions within varying business markets of interest. Our team started off with five markets that we identified issues in and were passionate about solving. These included Sports Engagement, Education, Student Debt, Digital Literacy, and Viral Health. From extensive research, trial and error, and endless conversations we settled on creating business models in two final areas: Student Debt and Viral Health. Our research in Student Debt led us to the discovery that the average Arizona State student, takes out $21,237 in loans for their four year degree and in the whole state of Arizona, a student takes on an average of $22,253. Our solution to this problem was to create a student financial app that served as an efficient debt tracker that provided important information about finances, investing, and student loan information. Additionally, our team also wanted the address the issue of sexually transmitted diseases, just a small scope of Viral Health, within Arizona State University. Our research led us to discover that 50% of people report not getting tested, and from this population most reported it was due to anxiety and financial issues. From our research the StayInformed app was created to provide students with better accessibility to both at-home and clinic testing services, and updated education on sexual health. With this project model we hope to increase the rate of students testing and allow students more agency over their sexual health. Although these two services are addressing very different markets, they both utilize forward thinking technology to create much needed solutions and better the lives of students.

A significant sub-market within student affairs has been long ignored and broken: Student housing success. Research shows that strong relationships between students that live together are crucial to the well-being and academic success of that student. The problem is that universities have not figured out a standard way to group students effectively with some universities opting to market this inefficiency as a normal part of the college experience. For our thesis as a part of Founders Lab, we created our company, RiZing, to tackle this inefficiency. RiZing addresses the student-housing gap and proves that the lack of effective matching can be solved with the right people and of course, video games. Both students and higher education institutions are desperately trying to solve this problem. General event service vendors are racing just as quickly to serve this collegiate market and are extremely motivated to work with anyone who does. As the world today is becoming increasingly digitized, the founders of RiZing believe that the solution to building and maintaining strong connections with peers is possible through leveraging technology such as video games to create strong personal bonds.

A significant sub-market within student affairs has been long ignored and broken: Student housing success. Research shows that strong relationships between students that live together are crucial to the well-being and academic success of that student. The problem is that universities have not figured out a standard way to group students effectively with some universities opting to market this inefficiency as a normal part of the college experience. For our thesis as a part of Founders Lab, we created our company, RiZing, to tackle this inefficiency. RiZing addresses the student-housing gap and proves that the lack of effective matching can be solved with the right people and of course, video games. Both students and higher education institutions are desperately trying to solve this problem. General event service vendors are racing just as quickly to serve this collegiate market and are extremely motivated to work with anyone who does. As the world today is becoming increasingly digitized, the founders of RiZing believe that the solution to building and maintaining strong connections with peers is possible through leveraging technology such as video games to create strong personal bonds.

This thesis project was conducted in accordance with the Founders Lab, a Barrett Honors Thesis program, hosted by the Center for Entrepreneurship at the W.P. Carey School of Business. This paper focuses on the development of Invicta Synergy, a student-led start-up that seeks to provide holistic approaches in developing healthy lifestyle practices as a solution to growing sedentary lifestyles (i.e., sitting at work, school, gaming, etc.) and recently increasing isolation amongst young adult populations. Primary research from interviews conducted during the customer discovery phase showed that many people suffer from self-esteem issues, the lack of a positive support system, and/or inadequate resources which were noted as more of a barrier than even time or financial constraints when it comes to engaging in healthier lifestyle habits. As a solution, Invicta Synergy seeks to connect people to safe, affordable, and engaging classes hosted by experts in yoga, breath-work, and guided meditation. Regularly engaging in these practices has been shown to have a positive effect on one's resilience and may divert health problems associated with chronic stress. This paper outlines Invicta Synergy’s traction since January 2022, including details on fourteen paying clients, four official business partnerships, four successful program classes with high attendance, the packaging and delivering of fourteen individualized wellness gift boxes to purchasing clients, a full-page publication in Elevate Magazine, and $420 in sales revenue so far.

This thesis project was conducted in accordance with the Founders Lab, a Barrett Honors Thesis program, hosted by the Center for Entrepreneurship at the W.P. Carey School of Business. This paper focuses on the development of Invicta Synergy, a student-led start-up that seeks to provide holistic approaches in developing healthy lifestyle practices as a solution to growing sedentary lifestyles (i.e., sitting at work, school, gaming, etc.) and recently increasing isolation amongst young adult populations. Primary research from interviews conducted during the customer discovery phase showed that many people suffer from self-esteem issues, the lack of a positive support system, and/or inadequate resources which were noted as more of a barrier than even time or financial constraints when it comes to engaging in healthier lifestyle habits. As a solution, Invicta Synergy seeks to connect people to safe, affordable, and engaging classes hosted by experts in yoga, breath-work, and guided meditation. Regularly engaging in these practices has been shown to have a positive effect on one's resilience and may divert health problems associated with chronic stress. This paper outlines Invicta Synergy’s traction since January 2022, including details on fourteen paying clients, four official business partnerships, four successful program classes with high attendance, the packaging and delivering of fourteen individualized wellness gift boxes to purchasing clients, a full-page publication in Elevate Magazine, and $420 in sales revenue so far.

A significant sub-market within student affairs has been long ignored and broken: Student housing success. Research shows that strong relationships between students that live together are crucial to the well-being and academic success of that student. The problem is that universities have not figured out a standard way to group students effectively with some universities opting to market this inefficiency as a normal part of the college experience. For our thesis as a part of Founders Lab, we created our company, RiZing, to tackle this inefficiency. RiZing addresses the student-housing gap and proves that the lack of effective matching can be solved with the right people and of course, video games. Both students and higher education institutions are desperately trying to solve this problem. General event service vendors are racing just as quickly to serve this collegiate market and are extremely motivated to work with anyone who does. As the world today is becoming increasingly digitized, the founders of RiZing believe that the solution to building and maintaining strong connections with peers is possible through leveraging technology such as video games to create strong personal bonds.

A significant sub-market within student affairs has been long ignored and broken: Student housing success. Research shows that strong relationships between students that live together are crucial to the well-being and academic success of that student. The problem is that universities have not figured out a standard way to group students effectively with some universities opting to market this inefficiency as a normal part of the college experience. For our thesis as a part of Founders Lab, we created our company, RiZing, to tackle this inefficiency. RiZing addresses the student-housing gap and proves that the lack of effective matching can be solved with the right people and of course, video games. Both students and higher education institutions are desperately trying to solve this problem. General event service vendors are racing just as quickly to serve this collegiate market and are extremely motivated to work with anyone who does. As the world today is becoming increasingly digitized, the founders of RiZing believe that the solution to building and maintaining strong connections with peers is possible through leveraging technology such as video games to create strong personal bonds.

A Skunkworks project is the name given to a small team of individuals leading an innovative undertaking, and conducting research and development outside of the normal scope of an organization. With this concept in mind, our team of six individuals was tasked with finding and conceptualizing innovative solutions within varying business markets of interest. Our team started off with five markets that we identified issues in and were passionate about solving. These included Sports Engagement, Education, Student Debt, Digital Literacy, and Viral Health. From extensive research, trial and error, and endless conversations we settled on creating business models in two final areas: Student Debt and Viral Health. Our research in Student Debt led us to the discovery that the average Arizona State student, takes out $21,237 in loans for their four year degree and in the whole state of Arizona, a student takes on an average of $22,253. Our solution to this problem was to create a student financial app that served as an efficient debt tracker that provided important information about finances, investing, and student loan information. Additionally, our team also wanted the address the issue of sexually transmitted diseases, just a small scope of Viral Health, within Arizona State University. Our research led us to discover that 50% of people report not getting tested, and from this population most reported it was due to anxiety and financial issues. From our research the StayInformed app was created to provide students with better accessibility to both at-home and clinic testing services, and updated education on sexual health. With this project model we hope to increase the rate of students testing and allow students more agency over their sexual health. Although these two services are addressing very different markets, they both utilize forward thinking technology to create much needed solutions and better the lives of students.