Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 16
Description
After freelancing on my own for the past year and a half, I have realized that one of the biggest obstacles to college entrepreneurs is a fear or apprehension to sales. As a computer science major trying to sell my services, I discovered very quickly that I had not been prepared for the difficulty of learning sales. Sales get a bad rap and very often is the last thing that young entrepreneurs want to try, but the reality is that sales is oxygen to a company and a required skill for an entrepreneur. Due to this, I compiled all of my knowledge into an e-book for young entrepreneurs starting out to learn how to open up a conversation with a prospect all the way to closing them on the phone. Instead of starting from scratch like I did, college entrepreneurs can learn the bare basics of selling their own services, even if they are terrified of sales and what it entails. In this e-book, there are tips that I have learned to deal with my anxiety about sales such as taking the pressure off of yourself and prioritizing listening more than pitching. Instead of trying to teach sales expecting people to be natural sales people, this e-book takes the approach of helping entrepreneurs that are terrified of sales and show them how they can cope with this fear and still close a client. In the future, I hope young entrepreneurs will have access to more resources that handle this fear and make it much easier for them to learn it by themselves. This e-book is the first step.
ContributorsMead, Kevin Tyler (Author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Kruse, Gabriel (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Smartphones have become an integral component of lifestyles worldwide, acting as mobile computers capable of life organization. They remain the most quickly cycled consumer electronic, owned for no more than 3 years on average. Individuals continue to upgrade their smartphones quickly, stemming from the desire for more power and better features. In 2016, there were 1.15 billion smartphone upgrades, resulting in a growing used smartphone market valued at \$18 billion. Individuals continue to invest time and effort to sell their smartphone, receiving payment of less than market value. In regards to value-minded users with solidified schedules, I created Trusted Trade-in. This startup provides the bustling middle class with the ability to upgrade their smartphone in an efficient and valuable manner. Compared to current solutions, Trusted Trade-in offers an all-in-one upgrade system. The creation of this startup involved the complete creation of a business model in addition to the coding of a responsive website. An online-based business, customers will be able to visit the Trusted Trade-in website and be given the options to trade-in or trade-up. Competing against Craigslist, eBay and Verizon, Trusted Trade-in features a combined smartphone resale and upgrade process. If the decision is made to trade-in, the customer will be quoted for their current smartphone according to specific physical criteria. The trade-up option will request the same information from the customer and allow them to select a new model for their upgrade. This exciting and innovative marketplace will completely transform the way people upgrade their smartphones through financial and time-based savings.
ContributorsWoods, Quintin Delane (Author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Lin, Elva S. Y. (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
What if unplanned free time could be spent with friends instead of trying to contact them? This app will do that by connecting you with friends who are ready to hang out. Kickback is a mobile app designed to connect individuals with their friends and businesses that offer opportunities to socialize in a group setting. The idea had been floating around in my head for a few years and this creative project gave me the opportunity to try my hand at making the idea into a reality. This thesis is a combination of technical efforts and business know-how that I had to learn in order to keep up along the way.
ContributorsFegard, Nathan (Author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Trujillo, Rhett (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The main objective of this thesis is to describe and analyze Clippr, an ASU startup founded by four students: Adam Lynch, Eric Gottfried, Ty Sivley, and Thomas Carpaneto. This paper will describe the formation of Clippr as a business, analyze the work and reasoning for dissolving the business, and suggest three pivots that could increase the chances of success for the future of Clippr. These three pivots are: mini salons, a concierge service, and an online resource. The idea for Clippr came from Sam, the team's friend's experience within the cosmetology industry. Sam graduated from cosmetology school in Phoenix and started his career as an assistant, which is the most common entry level position within the industry. Assistants do not get to work with clients and primarily do chores around the salon so he was not gaining any valuable experience. Eventually Sam found a position at a salon in Flagstaff. Unfortunately, he was not scheduled enough hours to pay his rent which forced him to travel back to Phoenix to cut his friend's and family's hair to make ends meet. Sam is not alone experiencing these issues within the industry, they are a common trend throughout the cosmetology field. It was found that there is a clear problem that affects every stylist: they struggle to reap the benefits of their self-employment. Most stylists become independent contractors where they are constrained by the salon's management. They are generally forced to work during the salon's hours of operations, promote specific products, adhere to a dress code, and forfeit their clients information. On the other hand, freelance workers outside of salons do enjoy greater freedoms within their work but with significant hurdles to overcome. They have a much harder time building a client base and face prohibitive start-up costs that make it harder to break into the industry.
ContributorsGottfried, Eric (Co-author) / Lynch, Adam (Co-author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Balasooriya, Janaka (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
This thesis creative project details my experience as an entrepreneur in the fitness industry. More specifically, I detail the process of creating my online fitness coaching business. A few of the topics covered in my thesis include my process for creating leads and acquiring clients, the scaling of my social media, and the future direction of my business. For the future direction of my business, I overview how I want to scale and improve my content. This is important to the longevity of my business as it helps me find women interested in my services. Additionally, I detail how I have developed the coaching program to provide the best service possible to the women within it. Overall, this thesis project allowed me the opportunity to formally write out the development of my business so far, and detail my goals in the future.
ContributorsNunez, Catherine (Author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Livengood, Scott (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
Through Entrepreneurship at ASU, I became passionate about venture creation and the behind the scenes work that comes with creating a startup company. This allowed me to create my own venture in the realm of travel called "OverLay", where I learned that entrepreneurship is much more than coming up with a solution and solving it. I went into the community and had informational interviews with founders of startups and successful entrepreneurs to collect qualitative analysis of what must be done to have a successful venture. Through this analysis, I continued working on my own personal venture and was able to reassess some of the initial problems that I was having. I learned the importance of being customer oriented and of creating a successful team. I am continuing to progress my venture "OverLay" and am working on an official prototype to be released. With unyielding determination and a relentless pursuit of excellence, I am excited to bring my vision to life and make a meaningful impact in the travel industry.
ContributorsFriedman, Matthew (Author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Kneer, Danny (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Management and Entrepreneurship (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
This project details my journey as an entrepreneur and the business plan for my current venture, White Trash Storage. It is a low-cost alternative to traditional self-storage. The thesis starts with my journey to developing the business as well as my recognition of the problem the business solves; it then details the business plan of WTS and ends with a discussion and next steps.
ContributorsKnowlton, Wesley (Author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Kneer, Danny (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Management and Entrepreneurship (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
“Digital Entrepreneurship: Creating and Doing Business in the Digital Age” is a resource for any current entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur who wants to learn about all things related to entrepreneurship in the Digital age, including how to start, what type of business to create, and everything ranging from advertising to web design. These pages serve as a resource for anyone looking into starting a business online and create their own path for wealth. After reading this paper you will learn how a college individual was able to create his own business as a side hustle while still a full time-student, how to legally start your own business for any niche or industry and a deep dive on all aspects of digital marketing in order to make your business successful. This paper also defines over twenty digital marketing terms and what steps you can take to implement each tactic into your business immediately. Research from a hundred different small business owners and marketing professionals around the world shows the latest trends and what they are currently doing in their own business as well. Using the author's own business (Paradise Marketing), we take a deep dive into how anyone can create their own business with just a few simple yet tactical steps. It doesn’t matter if you work in the largest industry in the world or the small niche that only a small market would use. Whether it's a small project or a large business idea you might have, use this thesis as not only a guide but a testimonial to the power of digital marketing and entrepreneurship in the current digital age.
ContributorsCooper, Ryan Wayne (Author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Williams, Tamika (Committee member) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
Entrepreneurship is an incredibly difficult endeavor. Along with the potentially high risk-to-return-ratio, starting an entrepreneurial venture, in nearly any capacity, necessitates a significant summation of work, time, creativity, and adaptability.1 In my opinion, many of the token hyper-productive individuals that have produced enormous amounts of value for the world were entrepreneurs who started their own companies and organizations. However, for every successful founder, there are thousands of failed entrepreneurs. In 2015, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that roughly 50% of businesses fail in the first four years.2 Founders, over time, must become professionals in their respective industries in order to succeed. With limited financial capital to hire employees, founders must learn skills in a variety of focus areas which could include finance, strategy, technology, management, marketing, sales, and many more, until they can generate enough capital to hire employees to fulfill these roles. Although the learnings and experiences from starting a company can more effectively be understood through experiencing it first-hand, in this document, I intend to start a startup from scratch, learn a multitude of skills involved with starting a startup and describe my experience. My hope is that potential founders can read this document and get a better understanding of what it’s like to start a startup. This thesis will be less focused on quantitative data capturing and more focused on my first-hand experience.
ContributorsNaluz, Ethan Gabriel (Author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Mian, Sami (Committee member) / Ravichandran, Anirudh (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Fermentation and humanity have a very long intertwined history, neither would exist without the other. Fermenting food preserves it so it can survive long beyond its normal shelf life by maintaining an environment that promotes the survival of healthy bacteria and not dangerous ones. Recently, largely thanks to the dawn of social media and the internet, the notion that eating healthily is important has once again come around. Kombucha has taken advantage of this revolution by promoting good tasting probiotics that are easily consumed and incorporated into day to day life. Sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables have not caught on because they are not presented in an easy to use format, there is no variety of flavoring, and consumers have no idea how to start eating it in their daily diet. This is the whole in the market that Fermentation Station is filling.
Normally, sauerkraut is only sold in very large containers that are intimidating to the average consumer. Fermentation Station will solve this issue by selling sauerkraut in small serving size containers or slightly bigger containers for a week long supply. Additionally, Fermentation Station will sell multiple different flavors of sauerkraut. This is necessary to intrigue a younger audience who desires variety and choice
The other place where sauerkraut falls short is that people are unaware of how to incorporate into their day to day meals. To solve this the company social media team has been growing its following on several platforms. By providing easy recipes through these platforms, consumers can see how they too can easily start eating more sauerkraut without actually altering their diet much. To augment the creator, Ryan Conley’s talents, two additional team members were brought on to help with branding and marketing, mostly on social media.
Normally, sauerkraut is only sold in very large containers that are intimidating to the average consumer. Fermentation Station will solve this issue by selling sauerkraut in small serving size containers or slightly bigger containers for a week long supply. Additionally, Fermentation Station will sell multiple different flavors of sauerkraut. This is necessary to intrigue a younger audience who desires variety and choice
The other place where sauerkraut falls short is that people are unaware of how to incorporate into their day to day meals. To solve this the company social media team has been growing its following on several platforms. By providing easy recipes through these platforms, consumers can see how they too can easily start eating more sauerkraut without actually altering their diet much. To augment the creator, Ryan Conley’s talents, two additional team members were brought on to help with branding and marketing, mostly on social media.
ContributorsConley, Ryan Christopher (Author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Schoepf, Jared (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05