Team:
Rachel Jaffe, School of Information, and Urban Planning, MSI/MUP 2017
Sal Saia, Unaffiliated
Brad Rose, Ross School of Business, MBA, 2017
Industry: Education, Entrepreneurship
Problem: Approximately 25% of Americans have expressed interest in starting their own start-ups, but 49% of these people express getting started as a key barrier. This problem can be broken down into three key needs: finding co-founders to help build the idea, finding a supportive community to offer feedback, and having mentors to help navigate the next steps.
Solution: Adjacent is a mobile app that helps emerging entrepreneurs find co-founders, mentors, and supporters right around them to form personalized communities. This helps university entrepreneurship programs track and improve their operations, and corporate campuses to increase intrapreneurship and provide innovation benchmarking.
Competitive Advantage: Many current companies solve pieces of the puzzle, but none of them provide Adjacent’s level of convenience, customization, and community. One key component of their solution is that everyone on the Adjacent network begins anonymously which ensures that everyone’s ideas, skills, and expertise are seen on an even playing field. Adjacent’s platform and back-end analytics helps University entrepreneurship programs increase the success of student start-ups, and helps corporations increase intrapreneurship and innovation within their companies.