ShipIt Sundays Creates Space for Student Entrepreneurs to Connect and Consult
As many starting and serial entrepreneurs would agree, mentorship from people in the industry, and especially those with deep technical knowledge, is invaluable to both budding and veteran founders. However, there is often a disconnect between fellow creatives because there isn’t a structured environment to help those converse with other like-minded individuals. That’s where Tech Square ATL and ShipIt Sundays come into play.
The core purpose of ShipIt was to provide students with a place to work on their side projects and passions alongside other builders with an intrinsic motivation to do the same. And The Clubhouse was the perfect place to do just that.
Founded by Eric Holtzclaw (Partner, Tarkenton Private Capital; Founder, Liger), Cory Levy (Founder, ZFellows; FirstText.com), and Andrew Dorman (Knoll Ventures), ShipIt aimed to create a space for driven folks to hold each other accountable to make progress on an idea they're working on. More than a networking event, fireside chat, or anything else that dominates college campuses, ShipIt is a novel approach to breaking down barriers that often impedes entrepreneurship.
So, every Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. (and subsequently moved to Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.), students gathered at The Clubhouse to work in a fostering environment where attendees can create to facilitate innovation based on the following format:
1:30 p.m. - 1:50 p.m. — round table in small groups: what you're working on and what inspires you
1:50 p.m. - 2:40 p.m. — focused work
2:40 p.m. - 2:55 p.m. — break/hang out/network
2:55 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. — focused work
3:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. — demos and closing
Most discussions centered around how to help teams get from zero to one in their development and discovery process. Below are some notable teams that graduated from the program:
Rishi Bengani, Srikar Parsi, Atishay Jain, and Tanuj Dunthuluri built Candor, an end-to-end AI issue reporting platform for local authorities and their constituents promoting open communication and honesty.
Matt Steele and Ben Steele built Solv, a platform to help students learn and understand course material, specifically trained to solve complex math problems that traditional GPTs fail at.
Arjun Dewan is building a new node-based search engine for research that allows researchers to find new papers to read.
Equally as important was the notion that ShipIt Sundays revealed that when you challenge students to build things using the knowledge they've learned at school, you'll be surprised at what they create – the possibilities are endless.