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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
I currently run a used off-road shop that buys, sells, trades, and repairs off-road vehicles such as dirtbikes, ATVs, and UTVs. Given the success of our current location in Mesa, Arizona, I have decided to explore the possibility of expaning the business. There are a plethora of ways I could expand the business, but I chose to research opening a new location in California. After looking at many different criteria for franchising a business, I narrowed my criteria down to the six most important factors: Number of riding locations, number of repair shops, pricing, cost of real estate, taxes, and cost of labor. After thorough research, I have concluded that opening another location in California would not be a viable option. My next area of research will be regarding opening a location in Colorado, Texas, or even another location here in Arizona.
ContributorsJarvis, Nick bruce (Author) / Peck, Sidnee (Thesis director) / Faris, Kay (Committee member) / Sebold, Brent (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Management (Contributor)
Created2013-12
Description
Entreprenurshift: An Era of Transition asks the questions: what is an entrepreneur? Has the definition changed? Or is the landscape changing around the individuals? The thesis surveys the entrepreneurial landscape, starting with early inventors in the 19th century to today's top minds in technical fields, finding common characteristics all entrepreneurs share. Then, the analysis focuses on how the entrepreneurial landscape has shifted, specifically looking at the change in technological advances, avenues for fundraising capital, and the concept of virality, which ultimately create an entirely new playing field. In the end, although the process of being an entrepreneur is the very different, the landscape attracts the same type of people, all who are willing to risk everything in order to see success. In short, the entrepreneurial landscape is changing drastically, but the individuals successful in entrepreneurship today seem to attain the same characteristics as all the successful entrepreneurs who came before them all.
ContributorsUnderseth, Kyle Philip (Author) / Peck, Sidnee (Thesis director) / Sebold, Brent (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
A growing number of stylists \u2014 cosmetologists \u2014 are finding it harder to afford the basic necessities such as rent. However, the ever-increasing presence of smartphones and the increasing need for on-demand services like Uber and Uber Eats creates a unique opportunity for stylists \u2014 Clippr. Clippr is an application that aims to connect individual stylists directly to their customers. The application gives stylists a platform to create and display their own prices, services, and portfolio. Customers get the benefit of finding a stylist that suits them and booking instantly. This project outlines the backend for the Clippr application. It goes over the framework, REST API, and various functionalities of the application. Additionally, the project also covers the work that is still needed to successfully launch the application.
ContributorsKamath, Sanketh (Author) / Olsen, Christopher (Thesis director) / Sebold, Brent (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
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
Understanding the necessary skills required to work in an industry is a difficult task with many potential uses. By being able to predict the industry of a person based on their skills, professional social networks could make searching better with automated tagging, advertisers can target more carefully, and students can better find a career path that fits their skillset. The aim in this project is to apply deep learning to the world of professional networking. Deep Learning is a type of machine learning that has recently been making breakthroughs in the analysis of complex datasets that previously were not of much use. Initially the goal was to apply deep learning to the skills-to-company relationship, but a lack of quality data required a change to the skills-to-industry relationship. To accomplish the new goal, a database of LinkedIn profiles that are part of various industries was gathered and processed. From this dataset a model was created to take a list of skills and output an industry that people with those skills work in. Such a model has value in the insights that it forms allowing candidates to: determine what industry fits a skillset, identify key skills for industries, and locate which industries possible candidates may best fit in. Various models were trained and tested on a skill to industry dataset. The model was able to learn similarities between industries, and predict the most likely industries for each profiles skillset.
ContributorsAndrew, Benjamin (Co-author) / Thiel, Alex (Co-author) / Sodemann, Angela (Thesis director) / Sebold, Brent (Committee member) / Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
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
It is commonly accepted that undergraduate degree attainment rates must improve if postsecondary educational institutions are to meet macroeconomic demands. Involvement in co-curricular activities, such as student clubs and organizations, has been shown to increase students' satisfaction with their college experience and the rates by which they might persist. Yet, strategies that college administrators, faculties, and peer leaders may employ to effectively promote co-curricular engagement opportunities to students are not well developed. In turn, I created the Sky Leaders program, a retention-focused intervention designed to promote commuter student involvement in academically-purposeful activities via faculty- and peer-lead mentoring experiences. Working from an interpretivist research paradigm, this quasi-experimental mixed methods action research study was intended to measure the intervention's impact on participants' re-enrollment and reported engagement rates, as well as the effectiveness of its conceptual and logistical aspects. I used enrollment, survey, interview, observation, and focus group data collection instruments to accommodate an integrated data procurement process, which allowed for the consideration of several perspectives related to the same research questions. I analyzed all of the quantitative data captured from the enrollment and survey instruments using descriptive and inferential statistics to explore statistically and practically significant differences between participant groups. As a result, I identified one significant finding that had a perceived positive effect. Expressly, I found the difference between treatment and control participants' reported levels of engagement within co-curricular activities to be statistically and practically significant. Additionally, consistent with Glaser and Strauss' grounded theory approach, I employed open, axial, and selective coding procedures to analyze all of the qualitative data obtained via open-ended survey items, as well as interview, observation, and focus group instruments. After I reviewed and examined the qualitative data corpus, I constructed six themes reflective of the participants' programmatic experiences as well as conceptual and logistical features of the intervention. In doing so, I found that faculty, staff, and peer leaders may efficaciously serve in specific mentoring roles to promote co-curricular engagement opportunities and advance students' institutional academic and social integration, thereby effectively curbing their potential college departure decisions, which often arise out of mal-integrative experiences.
ContributorsSebold, Brent (Author) / Beardsley, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / Serafini, Frank (Committee member) / Wharton, Christopher (Christopher Mack), 1977- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
River rafting trips and hikers use sandbars along the Colorado River in Marble and Grand Canyons as campsites. The U.S. Geological Survey evaluated the effects of Glen Canyon Dam operations on campsite areas on sandbars along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park. Campsite area was measured annually from 1998 to 2012 at 37 study sites between Lees Ferry and Diamond Creek, Arizona. The primary purpose of this report is to present the methods and results of the project.
Campsite area surveys were conducted using total station survey methods to outline the perimeter of camping area at each study site. Campsite area is defined as any region of smooth substrate (most commonly sand) with no more than an 8 degree slope and little or no vegetation. We used this definition, but relaxed the slope criteria to include steeper areas near boat mooring locations where campers typically establish their kitchens.
The results show that campsite area decreased over the course of the study period, but at a rate that varied by elevation zone and by survey period. Time-series plots show that from 1998 to 2012, high stage-elevation (greater than the 25,000 ft3/s stage-elevation) campsite area decreased significantly, although there was no significant trend in low stage-elevation (15,000–20,000 ft3/s) campsite area. High stage-elevation campsite area increased after the 2004 and 2008 high flows, but decreased in the intervals between high flows. Although no overall trend was detected for low stage-elevation campsite areas, they did increase after high-volume dam releases equal to or greater than about 20,000 ft3/s. We conclude that dam operations have not met the management objectives of the Glen Canyon Adaptive Management program to increase the size of camping beaches in critical and non-critical reaches of the Colorado River between Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Mead.
ContributorsKaplinski, Matt (Author) / Hazel, Joe (Author) / Parnell, Rod (Author) / Hadley, Daniel R. (Author) / Grams, Paul (Author)
Created2014-07
Description
This thesis project has been conducted in accordance with The Founder’s Lab initiative which is sponsored by the W. P. Carey School of Business. This program groups three students together and tasks them with creating a business idea, conducting the necessary research to bring the concept to life, and exploring different aspects of business, with the end goal of gaining traction. The product we were given to work through this process with was Hot Head, an engineering capstone project concept. The Hot Head product is a sustainable and innovative solution to the water waste issue we find is very prominent in the United States. In order to bring the Hot Head idea to life, we were tasked with doing research on topics ranging from the Hot Head life cycle to finding plausible personas who may have an interest in the Hot Head product. This paper outlines the journey to gaining traction via a marketing campaign and exposure of our brand on several platforms, with a specific interest in website traffic. Our research scope comes from mainly primary sources like gathering opinions of potential buyers by sending out surveys and hosting focus groups. The paper concludes with some possible future steps that could be taken if this project were to be continued.
ContributorsGoodall, Melody Anne (Co-author) / Rote, Jennifer (Co-author) / Lozano Porras, Mariela (Co-author) / Byrne, Jared (Thesis director) / Sebold, Brent (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05