unilist
DisrupTexas Startup Pitch Competition
unilist is an app idea my friend Mark and I co-founded and pitched as a startup in the DisrupTexas Startup Competition.
This idea started at the beginning of our first semester in college as we discussed how much we grossly underestimated all the new expenses we were facing. At the same time, we talked about how much of what we purchased wouldn’t be needed after college, meaning this would eventually create waste.
Thus, the problem was born.
After talking about multiple solutions, we settled on the idea of creating an e-commerce app that created a second-hand market within one university campus. This could include listing both products, as well as services to create another financial opportunity for students. We developed this idea not only with the goal of helping students financially, but also promoting sustainability across college campuses as a whole.
For creating a mockup of the product, Mark let me take full control as the head designer. Through this, I used Figma for the first time to develop some interfaces to present the app’s features.
View below to take a look.
Aside from creating the product, we also had to look at the business side of things. As engineering and government majors, this was new for both of us.
We started off with market research to determine and quantify the scope of the issue.
We then analyzed ten existing revenue models and cross-compared them to determine which would suit unilist best. In this process, we deterred away from a commission-based revenue model, which commonly used for e-commerce platforms, since we did not want to mitigate the financial opportunity for the student users. Ultimately, we decided that employing an advertisement-based revenue model would align best with our goals and values.
Afterwards, we were able to make some calculations to optimize a projected anual revenue for the business model.
1. Implementing a consolidated, local market with each college campus
2. Targeting the needs of a specific market segment through focusing solely on college students
3. Making sustainability a core brand value
After this we created a market adoption strategy as well as some milestones to measure growth.
Lastly, to end off our pitch, we brought light to unilist’s potential impacts:
Outcome
Ultimately, unlist was a huge learning experience for both Mark and I, as we were able to advance to the semi-finals of the competition. We both grew a better understanding of business factors such as markets and revenues, as well as UI and Figma for me. I was able to take much of what I learned and apply it to other experiences such as case competitions and involvements in other organizations.