Latest / Black Box Theory Podcast / What It Actually Takes to Build a Startup in College
Transcript
- Thomas: Like you've done something great with Rooted. And Rooted, which is now in the middle of an actual institutional partnership process with Howard, which means MSA under negotiation, security review, all of that and more. So I guess I want to ask you, can you explain rooted, but then also explain what was harder between building the product or getting the university to say yes to the product? Jayson: yeah yeah yeah. Okay, so Rooted is an all in one campus live platform. You know, it's actually something you can download on your phone right now. Send information about what's going on around your campus, something that we want to Malcolm: Mm. Jayson: bring to all HBCUs, but things like dining hall information, sports, clubs, just events, Malcolm: Tough. Jayson: for really necessary everyone on campus. And so when creating this application, I would say AI makes things so much easier nowadays. So Malcolm: a thhous, Jayson: The hard yeah. And coming from Malcolm: yeah. Thomas: Yeah. Jayson: the engineering background, it it was harder to like do the business side. So like negotiating with the school. Malcolm: Mm. Jayson: and then 'cause they have a lot of different stakeholders, it's like a hundred and h who knows how many years institutions. So they have a lot of things already in place and set up and things like that. And then they don't normally buy businesses from students. So it's just like, Malcolm: Mm. Jayson: you know, it's a lot of new things for a lot of the people there. And so I would say that's was much harder than the actual engineering work because that's just what I love to do. Malcolm: Yeah. Jayson: and then like I was felt like I was really outside my field, especially with like the security things. and then doing a lot of the marketing and promotion as well as like analytics for the app and then doing Malcolm: Mm-hmm. Jayson: a lot of the law stuff and things like that too. So for me personally, it was a lot harder to do that. So that's what I'd say. Malcolm: Yeah. Jayson: So that's my brother. Sorry. Yeah, Thomas: Shout out, shout out, bro. Jayson: shout out him. He also went to an HBCU, things like that. Doing the podcast right now. all right. But yeah, Thomas: Hey. It's awesome. Jayson: Yeah, he's helping me with rooted too, so he's really working on like the sports section and things like that as well. Cause we realize Malcolm: word. Jayson: there's not a lot of like representation for HBC s HBCU sports, like statistics, things like that, and that's something that we really Malcolm: Yeah. Jayson: want to bring into the app as well. So like You know, I feel like a lot of other sports centers like E ESPN, things like that, do cover a lot of news for a lot of other institutions, but not like HBCU conferences. So that's something that we want to do too. Malcolm: Yeah, nah, I I was gonna say I know like every time like I look up like the score when I see like ANT playing or some of that, I have to go to like HBC, like ESPN like three or four to just to see like the I have Jayson: Yeah. Malcolm: to go on actual like it's like if you look up like a like if Duke or Alabama or Georgia or somebody in SEC or like the big tennis playing, like that's gonna be the first thing that pops up on Google, like the live score with the score bug, all that. But if it's an AC, you have to actually like do some digging and it's like the I know like the the scores are also almost always like behind than the actual score in the actual game. So it's like it's a Jayson: Mm-hmm. Malcolm: ton of like you can tell it's like not as much like effort and the quality and in real time updates as obviously Thomas: Okay. Malcolm: some of the bigger, maybe more profitable leagues, but that's major. So I guess like for just to kind of like follow up on Thomas's question, like for the root of stuff. So were you he's you're you're a you're a co founder like for Jayson: Yeah. Malcolm: for that right. So I guess is your did your other co founder, did he was he like more focused on like some of like the like I guess like the writing like a ton of like the code and like the the back end, front end, like like the UI stuff like that. Or how did you guys kinda like split the work up between like Jayson: Yeah, well without my co founder Noah Day, n none of this would have been done. Yeah yeah. He yeah, Malcolm: I was about to say s yeah, shout out bro, 'cause they yeah app is hard, yeah. Jayson: he's also he just graduated from Howard. He was electrical engineering and he's now going to Malcolm: Okay. Let's go, okay. Jayson: Johns Hawkins for his PhD in electrical engineering. So he's Malcolm: y'all like y'all try hards, bro. I'm not gonna lie. I like both tryhards. Thomas: Yeah. Jayson: So he's yeah, he's on a lot of similar time as me and I feel like that's what made things work really well. But at the beginning, Malcolm: Okay. Jayson: so we were trying to build this app before AI was really a thing and so he was gonna Malcolm: Okay. Jayson: focus on like the iOS side of coding. I was gonna Malcolm: Yeah. Jayson: do Android until we learned like we definitely shouldn't be splitting it up. But now we split it up to where he does a lot of the stuff in AWS in the back end, I do a lot of the front end, and then we just try our best to like split marketing and talking to like our university relations and things like that. Malcolm: Yeah. Jayson: but yeah, early on it was like we were really dividing and conquering at least the coding, until AI just like made it a lot easier, things like that. Malcolm: Facts. Jayson: and so yeah. Thomas: So it's just like y'all two right now, or are you thinking because I know, you know, you're both about to go into PhD programs, you Jayson: Thanks. Thomas: know, s a lot going on with life, I guess.