This thesis will bring together students to engage in entrepreneurship by finding, measuring and sharing strategic market opportunities. From a student’s perspective, it will take a deep dive into the world of startup ecosystems, markets and trends utilizing both qualitative and quantitative market research techniques. The information gathered has been curated into a productive, meaningful manner, through a report titled “The State of Startups: A Student Perspective.” <br/> The first key theme of this thesis is that market intelligence can be a powerful tool. The second key theme is the power of knowledge implementation towards competitive strategies. The first section of the thesis will focus on identifying and understanding the current “startup” landscape as a basis on which to build strategic and impactful business decisions. This will be accomplished as the team conducts a landscape analysis focused on the student perspective of the student-based North American “entrepreneurial” ecosystem. The second section of the thesis will focus specifically on the personal experiences of student startup founders. This will be accomplished through the analysis of interviews with founders of the startups researched from the first section of the thesis. This will provide us with a direct insight into the student perspective of the student-based North American “entrepreneurial” ecosystem.

Esports is a rapidly growing virtual competitive space that is projected to surpass physical sports in the near future. Given that Esports is considered to be in its infancy, it has only been recently introduced at the high school level. Our group connected with local high school Esports teams in order to evaluate its efficiency. We found that players at this level are lacking a connection to other competitive teams and consistent practice. In the Esports world, practice with another team of equal level is called a “scrim”. In an effort to combat this issue, we created a platform named Clear Scrims to connect high school and collegiate Esport teams across the country with other teams of equivalent level. This platform will allow individuals to sign up, register with their competitive team, and provide available times to scrim. The platform then would be able to use their self-reported ingame rank to match them with worthy opponents for the most quality scrim experience. Teams playing into the growing sector of Esports need a structure like Clear Scrims to increase skill level and communication. In addition, our platform has a review component where teams and individuals score their opponent to see if they played as advertised. This component will help specify our matchmaking program but also work to dismantle the culture of bad manners or toxicity in Esports. Our site, Clear Scrims, will engender more competition and thus more opportunities for players to practice and hone in their skills.

Esports is a rapidly growing virtual competitive space that is projected to surpass physical sports in the near future. Given that Esports is considered to be in its infancy, it has only been recently introduced at the high school level. Our group connected with local high school Esports teams in order to evaluate its efficiency. We found that players at this level are lacking a connection to other competitive teams and consistent practice. In the Esports world, practice with another team of equal level is called a “scrim”. In an effort to combat this issue, we created a platform named Clear Scrims to connect high school and collegiate Esport teams across the country with other teams of equivalent level. This platform will allow individuals to sign up, register with their competitive team, and provide available times to scrim. The platform then would be able to use their self-reported ingame rank to match them with worthy opponents for the most quality scrim experience. Teams playing into the growing sector of Esports need a structure like Clear Scrims to increase skill level and communication. In addition, our platform has a review component where teams and individuals score their opponent to see if they played as advertised. This component will help specify our matchmaking program but also work to dismantle the culture of bad manners or toxicity in Esports. Our site, Clear Scrims, will engender more competition and thus more opportunities for players to practice and hone in their skills.

Esports is a rapidly growing virtual competitive space that is projected to surpass physical sports in the near future. Given that Esports is considered to be in its infancy, it has only been recently introduced at the high school level. Our group connected with local high school Esports teams in order to evaluate its efficiency. We found that players at this level are lacking a connection to other competitive teams and consistent practice. In the Esports world, practice with another team of equal level is called a “scrim”. In an effort to combat this issue, we created a platform named Clear Scrims to connect high school and collegiate Esport teams across the country with other teams of equivalent level. This platform will allow individuals to sign up, register with their competitive team, and provide available times to scrim. The platform then would be able to use their self-reported ingame rank to match them with worthy opponents for the most quality scrim experience. Teams playing into the growing sector of Esports need a structure like Clear Scrims to increase skill level and communication. In addition, our platform has a review component where teams and individuals score their opponent to see if they played as advertised. This component will help specify our matchmaking program but also work to dismantle the culture of bad manners or toxicity in Esports. Our site, Clear Scrims, will engender more competition and thus more opportunities for players to practice and hone in their skills.