The Founders Lab is a team-focused, exploratory Barrett Thesis project that allows students the opportunity to discover and utilize their “inner entrepreneur”. This project empowers teams of students to come up with a business idea; create a strategic business model; conduct research on a target market; generate a brand style, logo, and other marketing-related materials; meet with business professionals as a way to receive feedback; and finalize a business plan with tangible deliverables. This project in particular focuses on the creation of an app that allows users to connect with others in competitive esports tournaments and participate in tutoring sessions for financial incentives. Throughout our experience participating in the Founders Lab, we were able to construct this business pitch.

There is a serious lack of local news in Arizona, the American Southwest, and the United States at-large. Arizonans are craving quality, factual, no-holds-barred journalism that is easy-to-read, and upfront. Quality, local news that covers the ins and outs of politics, culture, and community has an opportunity to not only enhance civic life, promote community healing, and expand knowledge made available to the general public (thus serving the communities it calls home), but to also generate revenue. Further, independent and center-right leaning voters in the state of Arizona — be reminded that independents make up the second largest voting bloc among Arizonans — are often crowded out in a media environment that consists of far-left nonprofit-funded news sites like the Arizona Mirror, formerly reputable papers that have bled readership as they veer further left like the Arizona Republic, and far-right online blogs that reach a very limited audience. The Western Tribune is an Arizona-based journalistic publication. This institution is dedicated to providing high-quality, well-sourced news and commentary on statewide, regional, national, and international current affairs through the lens of good government and free enterprise — as well as Southwestern values. We are a free institution that believes in free institutions. We cover stories that go uncovered because of the corporate media’s blind spots (and they’ve got many — they’re a result of news deserts and out-of-touch coastal attitudes) with the stable support of a robust institution dedicated to Truth-seeking behind them. Our storytellers are not just good writers. We seek to recruit and form critical thinkers with skills that span trades, disciplines, and educational backgrounds. We are building an institution committed to excellence.