AdHear Health is a health tech company developing an app that helps people take their medications using behavioral economics and machine learning.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

AdHear Health is unique because it is the first app in the medication adherence space that is tailored to each patient. We utilize user-provided feedback and machine learning to precisely treat a specific patient. Working for our company would be a great experience because it can allow students to explore the field of data science and the intersection between healthcare and technology. Our app will also have a direct impact on saving patients' lives, which is always something people take pride in helping with.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

Currently, we are a pre-seed company looking to bring on software developers to build out our minimum viable product. Our next milestone is to build our MVP, which we plan on achieving by onboarding software developers. As a fellow, you can make a large impact by joining our team of engineers and helping us reach this next milestone.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We hope fellows have experience in programming, specifically app development. We are looking for both front-end and back-end engineers using languages such as Python and React Native. We also hope fellows are passionate about entrepreneurship and the health tech space.

Ascendance is an international education start-up that has impacted over 50,000 students across 28 countries, worked with ministries of education and received the Diana Award for Social Action and humanitarian work. Our goal is to provide equal and equitable access to students all around the world to explore various industries and learn about entrepreneurship.

We recently launched our online platform, TheTeenageEntrepreneur.com, which has over 200+ live events, workshops, programs and more for students to engage with to discover their passion, build their skills and develop their ventures.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

We operate globally and already have thousands of students on our platform. Therefore, you will not only get international exposure by working with Ascendance but will also be able to see solutions you come up with implemented with real-time feedback and impact. You will also be able to work with a team of award-winning entrepreneurs based in Southeast Asia with 7+ years of growing this start-up to global heights.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

The Teenage Entrepreneur platform is currently in the beta testing stage with our first batch of users already engaging with our MVP. Our next platform is to gamify the platform - automating our systems so that it provides personal engagement and pathways to students

You will actually be a part of developing personalized learning curriculums for students that are poised to go on to impact thousands of at-risk students across the globe and get access to customized curriculum based on their interests and skills!

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are looking for fellows who are interested in any aspect of this process but primarily in platform development. If you have any programming skills or want to try mapping out a gamified learning experience - do apply!

Bling Bling is a dedicated marketplace for pre-owned & authenticated fine jewelry. It is the first and only marketplace to buy and sell pre-owned fine jewelry in a fun, convenient, affordable, and sustainable manner.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Work with Bling Bling if you are passionate about fashion, luxury goods, resale/circularity, sustainability, and marketplaces. We are on a mission to disrupt how millennial and Gen Z consumers think about and consume jewelry. Founder of Bling Bling has a background in finance, luxury goods, fine art, e-commerce and entrepreneurship.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are currently building out our MVP and aim to launch our marketplace by the summer 2023. To get there, below are some key milestones and how you can become an essential part of our impact:
1. Consumer Insight: Conduct consumer interviews, surveys, and research to gain unique insights into consumers' desires, behavior, and price sensitivity.
2. Online Product Design: Based on consumer insights, design online user experience, interface, and branding.
3. Offline Experience Design: Based on consumer insights, design offline user experience, including interfacing with logistical partners.
4. Partnerships: Outreach and build partnerships with industry partners in luxury goods, jewelry brands, resale apps, and shipping/logistics.
5. Strategy: Develop go-to-market strategy and execution

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

1. Business Development, including outreach to potential key partnerships and advisors
2. Strategy, including developing go-to-market strategy and execution
3. Consumer and market research, including qualitative interviews, quantitative survey analysis, and desktop research
4. Web product design (marketplaces or resale platforms/apps)

BrainFood is a company focused on optimizing mental health through evidence-based solutions. We have two approaches: 1) Functional wellness drinks aimed at supporting long-term brain health and mitigating unwanted symptoms for those on the spectrum of attention-deficiet hyperative disorder (ADHD), anxiety disorders, and depressive disorders. 2) An online educational platform to educate consumers on at-home mental health self-management so they can be leaders of their own health.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Our mission is to use the power of nutrition and education to support brain health and empower people to live their best lives. We strive to create accessible nutrition and education for the mind through sustainable,science-backed, and socially conscious solutions.

We are the first company linking convenient, easy-to-use, enjoyable cognitive beverages to comprehensive mental health education. We are a team of passionate budding doctors, engineers, and consultants, with a broad range of expertise, including psychiatry, product design, biomedical engineering, genetics, and CPG experience. By working with us, a VIP fellow would be able to learn more about brain physiology and mental health, while having clear ownership of our marketing strategies. On top of that, the functional beverage market is booming, so it is an exciting time to learn about this part of the CPG industry.

Our fellow would be making large contributions to a company that could truly positively impact people’s lives.

Unlike other functional beverages, wellness doesn’t stop at the drink for us. We want to demystify, decode, and defy mental health standards and build strong, confident communities. But we are a small team - while we are working hard creating the formula and obtaining funding, it is difficult for us to build the social marketing, community, and education platform. Fortunately, that means this is a great opportunity for the VIP fellow to own the social and online communication, and really have a substantial impact building the company.

In parallel, if the fellow is interested in consumer health, or health care, this fellowship would provide them deep education on brain health and the science behind various mental disorders as well as scientifically-backed self-care.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are in the validation stage of venture implementation, specifically, creating the beverage prototype, fundraising, and building relationships with potential consumers.

Our next milestone is creating the MVP of our first beverage and building an online presence in the nutritional psychiatry space through a website and social media (instagram/tik tok.) To create the MVP, we are working with integrative medicine physicians, psychiatrists, food scientists, and working in the food lab ourselves to formulate the drink using the key ingredients we have identified through extensive literature review. To create a website, we are building a user-friendly and clear platform through wix utilizing the competitor research we have already conducted. To create a strong social media presence, we are developing a monthly posting schedule and marketing plan with the goal of providing nutrition-focused content that our audience can readily understand and implement to improve their mental health.

The main role our fellow would play is to act as a marketing intern. They would be in charge of designing a social media marketing plan and posts based on current nutritional psychiatry research and health guidelines. Another aspect our fellow would contribute to is to create an affiliate marketplace on the website that serves to connect our consumers with external resources to manage their health (e.g., books, podcasts, therapy.)

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

• Passionate about the mental health space and reducing stigma
• Proficient in social media platforms (i.e., instagram, Tik Tok)
• Understands basic aspects of graphic design
• Organized, good time-management skills
• Good at written and verbal communication
• Thrives in fast-paced work environments

Bunked! is a centralized platform for incoming college students to find their perfect roommates. Our app capitalizes on the growing swiping and matching culture to create an efficient, anonymous, and stress-free way to find friends and roommates.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Created by college students, Bunked! is tailored to meet their needs. By signing up with their school account, and selecting personal attributes, lifestyle habits, and interests, students can begin swiping right on classmates whose preferences & priorities align with theirs.

Finding a great roommate is essential to a successful college experience, so we help students swipe and choose with Bunked!, their ultimate move-in matchmaker.

We are an undergrad team made of diverse founders. The fellow will be able to work with peers and learn alongside us to grow with the startup. We aim to include the VIP fellow as a part of the team where they will be able to directly voice their ideas and see them be implemented in the final product that we create. Fellows will have the chance to attend weekly team meetings, networking events, and pitch nights to explore entrepreneurship at Penn.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are currently pre-seed and in technology development. We are working with a student developer to create a beta web version of our mobile app, which we will use for untimely testing, market research, and improvements.

We hope to receive the innovation fund implementation award, which we will use to work with a professional mobile app developer based on the responses and feedback from the web version, which should be ready in the following few weeks. Student fellows will be greatly helpful in conducting market research and getting the word out about Bunked! so that we can work on user feedback and experience improvements quickly and the most effective.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Proactive, Creative, Organized
We want the VIP fellow to become a part of the team and work with us to tackle issues. The fellow should be able to voice their opinions and dive straight into the work. A fellow with design or technical skills would be a great fit for our team as we are still in the technology development phase.

Chirp is an app for busy students and post-grads to navigate conflicting schedules and make plans happen.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Chirp is the only uniquely gen-z catered app for making plans. It makes scheduling and choosing activities/options quick, simple, and fun - incorporating gamification into the decision-making process and highlighting local experiences.

Think: brainchild between Yelp and Google Calendar, but better.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are currently in the stages of prototyping in preparation for development and release, making changes based on our validation research. Chirp offers those who are looking to apply their knowledge toward a project that impacts the greater Philadelphia community and help create something that ultimately might even benefit you and those around you, an exciting opportunity.

This fall, Chirp underwent concept validation. Based on our research we validated what kinds of experiences people are looking for, and that our product is indeed solving a real problem. The data also supports that there is demand for our product, and gave us insight into how to maximize our value proposition. The next milestone would be for the designs to undergo development towards MVP and launch - hopefully with the help of Venture Fellows!

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are looking for driven and talented Fellows who are excited about Chirp to join us in a few key areas:
Brand Marketing:
• Assist in the development of marketing materials - from social media content and email campaigns to promotional materials
• Analyze market trends and industry data to help direct marketing strategy
Community Outreach:
• Plan and execute branded events to get the community excited about Chirp
• Identify and reach out to local businesses for potential partnership opportunities
• Communicate and extend invitations for Chirp to on-campus clubs and organizations
Software Enginnering:
• Strong technical skills in app development, translating user interfaces from Figma into code
• Comfort in coding a product from scratch and regularly reiterating the project from the feedback received
• Ability to write and maintain documentation for the app development process and future guidelines
Financial Analyst:
• Manage the firm’s financial input and outputs through a detailed, accurate, and organized statement to be updated on a recurring basis -identify areas for financial savings and cost optimization -identify opportunities for funds (either through revenue generation, grants, or funded programs) -create a budget and financial timeline for Chirp -create a financial plan & market sizing for Chirp’s future revenues and expenses

For all roles, some previous experience is required, and we are in search of individuals with strong technical skills. Considering how early this project is, adaptability and excellent communication are key.

circulait is a circular economy platform whose core mission is to eliminate landfill waste generated by households. We aim to achieve this by educating consumers on how to correctly manage their waste and connecting them with local, private waste service providers to ensure that post-consumer waste is correctly treated. Our hypothesised offering would include an AI tool which informs consumers on how to categorize their waste then connect them with a platform which links them to local waste collection services and allows them to gain rewards for sustainable behavior.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

My venture is aiming to solve the problem of waste separation with software in a sector where hardware has been the preferred solution. Hardware, for this purpose, is easier to understand and implement, however, its pricing is high, making it exclusionary. This precludes these solutions from making significant environmental impact as they will only be used by a small proportion the population. We aim to be as inclusive as possible to drive the scale of change required to eliminate a major global source of greenhouse gas emissions.

The experience will allow fellows co-create an initial solution to a problem. Customer discovery and market analysis will be the main activities for fellows who join. These are key aspects of the zero to one process for circulait and will provide real time experience by allowing fellows to meaningfully impact the direction and trajectory of the company as it strives for product-market fit.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

Ideation phase. We have launched a survey to gain a better understanding of our target market. Part of the fellowship will include analyzing the results of this survey and determining the nature of the problem faced by consumers. Another aspect of the fellowship will involve determining the key players at each stage of the waste management value chain, their value proposition, their competitive advantage, and gaps that exist in the market. The combined results of this analysis will shape the service that circulait ultimately offers.

The next milestone is determining exactly what problem to focus on. We would like to understand what issues occur at each stage of the value chain in order to ensure that we are providing a holistic solution to the waste management problem. We plan to achieve this through surveys and focus groups/conjoint analysis with consumers to understand their main concerns and determine willingness to pay. We also plan to conduct interviews with companies across the waste management value chain to understand the main issues that they face and how they currently solve them. This will assist us in determining what type of MVP we need to build and how to test it.

We intend on bringing on two fellows to work with us.

The first fellow will make an impact by helping us to better understand our potential customers. We would like to start by examining the results of the recently launched survey to understand what struggles and concerns our potential customers face. This will allow us to determine which customer segments to focus on and what problem to solve for them. We would like to follow this up with a focus group/conjoint analysis to determine what features of a potential solution would be most appealing to this target segment along with determining how much customers value the various features on offer.

The second fellow would focus on building out a market map of the various players across the waste management value chain. This analysis will answer five questions: 1) who are our potential competitors are (their value propositions, and the source of their competitive advantage); 2) what white spaces exist in the market; 3) what the most feasible market entry point is; 4) who our potential partners are and; 5) what the barriers to entry are.

The results of these analyses will ultimately determine what our value proposition is, along with the makeup of our service offering. As a result, the work that fellows do will play a significant role in shaping the direction of the company.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are looking for fellows who can work independently and drive the analysis from one stage to the next with little input. We are also looking for fellows who have experience in analyzing qualitative data to provide insights and facilitate decision making. We would also like to see fellows who have an interest in contributing to the creation of a cleaner fund.

Clédo / Biotechnology meets beauty... Clédo is a luxury Korean Beauty ("K-Beauty") brand that offers clinically approved skincare and hair care products to fight one of our biggest worries: aging. Our bottles contain stem cell extracts, cultivated through Korean FDA-approved stem cell technology so that you can topically apply to your skin for the maximum anti-aging effects safely.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Clédo provides unique offering to its customers by finding the right product-market fit as consumers continue to search for science or innovation-based beauty products that helps them look and feel youthful. Being a part of Clédo mission helps to fight what humans have wrestled with for millennia through latest innovative technologies: being a part of a new trend that consumers have been waiting for. At the same time, VIP Fellows can learn about how new technologies are applied in an exciting industry that is not SaaS, and experience creating a new wave in the beauty industry with direct, immediate impact to the startup.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

The venture is currently in pre-launch phase. We have some market validation data and have latest version of the prototype (sample) ready to finalize the formulation and packaging/labeling of the product. Next milestone will be figuring out the go-to-market ("GTM") strategy and this will be achieved by continuing our research efforts to capture the best GTM steps necessary to successfully launch the product. The VIP Fellow would be tremendous in providing fact-based or experience-based knowledge of various GTM strategies and applying those framework to Clédo.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

1. Have experience in branding, marketing and/or GTM strategy for CPG companies (beauty industry or luxury goods would be even better)

2. Passionate about the beauty, luxury or CPG/Retail industry; OR functional passion in bringing an innovative product/company to the market

3. Researching, conceptualizing and analyzing market trends and case studies

Coached is a platform that allows athletes of all levels to receive virtual feedback from professionals and experts in the sport. Coached users are able to submit videos to a professional athlete of their choice and receive personalized advice on how to improve their game.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Coached will revolutionize sports coaching as we know it. Currently, there is a large untapped market of amateur athletes looking to take their performance to the next level. Coached makes access to expert level advice easily available and allows professional athletes to use their years of experience to help build the next generation.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

Currently Coached is in the seed stage with sights set on creating a Minimum Viable Product. Our next steps are to create a website/ app that would serve as a prototype allowing users to submit their videos and solicit coaching from a select group of pros. Our VIP-Fellow will be able to help us take this revolutionary idea from a concept to a tangible product by helping us build this prototype and facilitating a smooth user experience.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Ideally, our VIP-Fellow would have a strong technical/ coding background and be able to assist in creating the Coached app/ website. We are looking for hard-working, entrepreneurial, gritty individuals who are willing to be adaptable and self-driven. Lastly, our VIP-Fellow should strongly resonate with Coached’s mission to make exceptional coaching accessible to all athletes.

dazi is a community-driven makeup and skincare platform where users can track the products they already own and get customized recommendations and inspiration from others with the same or similar products. It’s a platform that brings together community, personalization, and sustainability specifically for beauty.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

dazi’s big bet is on a verticalized social platform for beauty where users will feel even more free and empowered to share content, tips, and discussions that they may not feel comfortable posting on larger social media platforms versus on a platform where everyone is part of the beauty community. But in order to drive value for users, we have to develop innovative features and tools (and continue to test them).

Prior to Wharton (MBA), the founder worked at Instagram in data science & analytics and was part of the first team focused on creators & influencers so she is well-versed in both the creator/influencer economy but also in the features that the beauty community has wanted from existing social platforms. Features that are not priorities for broader social platforms, but are value drivers for a beauty social platform.

And before Instagram/Meta, the founder worked at an early-stage ed-tech startup so she understands the needs and demands of a startup in these early days first-hand, but more importantly understands the value of ensuring that every team member can grow within the role and get real experience.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

dazi is at the early stage. As the idea has been validated through customer interviews (both on- & offline), the next milestone will be to launch a prototype (mobile web app) to continue to test and validate some of the features that came out of the research and interviews as well as to expand the waitlist for potential users for the full rollout later in 2023.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

dazi is looking for a venture fellow with experience in web development (specifically with building mobile web applications using Javascript, React Native, Firebase, and/or Flutter) who is collaborative and self-motivated. Additionally, interest/experience in social platforms, online communities, and/or the beauty industry is a plus.

Doughm is a pre-made dough company that makes next-level doughs of all kinds that are better than the alternatives. Doughm is higher quality than current store-bought offerings, cheaper than going to a bakery, and easier than making a mess yourself.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Doughm makes food, but really, it’s a hospitality company. Doughm doughs are provided uncooked, so customers can create whatever they want with them. Doughm enables anyone to be hospitable to their friends and family by providing easy, delicious, affordable doughs to create with. The VIP Fellow will get to work at the intersection of food, marketing, hospitality, and consumer products. As a part of a super-small, super-early-stage startup, the VIP Fellow will get to work super closely with the founder and have a significant opportunity to contribute to the company’s strategy and direction.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

Doughm has validated demand for its products among the college population. The next step is to figure out how to deliver consistently good products at a larger scale while keeping time commitment low (the founder is a student-athlete). The next big milestone will be establishing a core selection of doughs to offer and determining pricing in order to arrive at the next iteration of Doughm’s business model. This will be done by speaking to customers, doing market research outside the college market, and bouncing lots of ideas around on Zoom and Notion. The fellow can help make an impact by bringing fresh perspectives and distilling customer feedback into actionable insights.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Someone who likes to cook for others… or who doesn’t. Important to be personable, genuine, not afraid to ask questions, and have excellent digital communication abilities. Interest in consumer products/food/retail/hospitality/restaurants is a plus.

EmployAI is a decision intelligence platform that provides business users with easy-to-understand insights through dashboards, boardroom-ready slides, and email notifications.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

We have validated the concept through conversations with 30+ potential customers and have signed some initial consulting contracts. We are currently building out our MVP in conjunction with several companies who have expressed positive reactions to what they have used so far.

We are continuing to onboard new companies. Fellows will be able to make an impact on the product, business development, fundraising, and more.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are looking for people who are excited about the intersection of machine learning and business strategy. We are open to a variety of backgrounds as long as fellows are willing to dive into new challenges and learn.

We are open to fellows interested in the following:
Engineering:
• Focus on full stack development (expertise in Python and React are helpful)
• Build out initial data integrations
• Define product roadmap
• Implement and test various user workflows

Business Dev and Strategy:
• Outreach to prospective customers
• Support fundraising efforts
• Explore potential key partnerships
• Support go-to-market strategy and execution

Ensemble Space Labs is a NASA-backed space tech venture that provides data and software as a service (SaaS) to mitigate space weather threats to satellites, communication systems, airplanes, and other infrastructure.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Ensemble is a first mover in the market for real time space weather analytics products with direct impacts on the emerging low earth orbit economy and US national security. You will join a team of ex NASA engineers, physicists, and data scientists in a fast paced, virtual work environment with the ability to immediately impact our commercial go-to-market operations. This will be an excellent experience for entrepreneurially minded students with SaaS go-to-market experience interested in building an AI business in the new space sector. Having hosted VIP Fellows previously, we work to tailor each experience so that deliverables are aligned with personal and professional interests.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are in the process of raising a seed round of venture funding. Ensemble has raised $2.4 MM in grant funding from NASA, the US Air Force, and The Puerto Rico Science, Technology & Research Trust. Our next major milestone will be securing Letters of Intent (LOI) from at least ten commercial users of our real time atmospheric density Application Program Interface (API) or other analytics products, and the development of our Minimum Viable Product space weather alert and forecast system. The Fellow/VIP Practicum participant will help shape and execute the sales and go to market strategy so that we can achieve our LOI milestone.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are looking for an individual with a blend of entrepreneurial passion and a technical background in aeronautics, data science, product development, and/or SaaS sales. The individual should be able to quickly learn advanced concepts and communicate them to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Prior experience with SaaS sales, Python, and machine learning is desired but not required. A genuine interest in astrophysics, space weather, the space economy, and government/military applications is a plus.

FirstWork is a learning system that enables kids with autism to keep working on their therapeutic learning activities at home on their smart devices.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Firstwork is a social entrepreneurship endeavor, we are primarily focused on making a positive impact on kid’s learning experience. This ethos makes FirstWork’s collective efforts all the more meaningful and rewarding. Ultimately the company’s success generates incredibly meaningful learning opportunities for kids with special learning needs, being able to make an impact for this community is very rewarding and creates a positive atmosphere. FirstWork worked with four venture fellows in the fall term, it was an amazing experience for us as founders, and the fellows resonate with this sentiment. We aim to provide a meaningful experience to fellows by helping them work on project components that they are passionate about.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

FirstWork will be launching our application in the middle of the coming term, the company’s main objectives are expanding a multi-site multi-scenario efficacy testing pilot, finishing the application build, and marketing surrounding the product’s launch. Additionally, it is likely we will begin fundraising during the This is an exciting time in any startup’s journey. Fellows can contribute by helping in any of the domains listed below, last term fellows were a great help in UX/UI design and research, web-application design, and fundraising research and data room construction. We hope to have the same experience in the spring!

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Technical: We are building a technical product and could use help on the build side of the company. Skills or interest in web application development and/or artificial intelligence implementation/training are a plus but are not required.

UX/UI: We are constantly improving our user interface and experience based on research and user-feedback. We are interested in expanding our UX/UI team, research skills or interest/knowledge in education, psychology, and childhood development are a plus. Additionally skills in photoshop are helpful.

Curriculum: We are building a curriculum that is geared towards young learners building foundational skills. If you have skills in this domain we would love to include you in our curriculum research and design process.

Business: This term we are working on creating a data room for our next fundraising round, marketing, and doing B2B sales. If you are interested in any of these domains we would love to involve you in our business operations.

Customer Onboarding Success Specialist: FirstWork is aiming to create a cutting-edge onboarding experience and could use the help of a fellow to do so. One of FirstWork’s advisors, a Wharton E-MBA with 10+ years of experience in customer success will be managing the project. The ideal match would be process focused with a background in technology. Writing skills and visual design skills are also relevant for this project.

Fitalyst humanizes campus engagement data to close the achievement gap for First-Generation college students and their institutions.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

For many students, the transition to college life is challenging, but for First-Gen students this transition can be particularly more daunting as some face unique challenges due to cultural and socioeconomical differences. These challenges can lower outcomes for student academic success; for example, according to the Pell Institute, only 10% of First-Gen students receive their bachelor's degree in 6 years, and 44% drop out. For colleges, this translates into higher dropout rates of First-Gen students, underutilized campus resources, and misallocation of alumni donations & federal funding. Our team believes that true innovation is inextricably tied to social impact and if our solution works for First-Gen students, it’ll work for all students!

Social innovation-focused fellows will have the opportunity to gain practical skills (biz & product development) in moving our flagship product, Dash, from prototype to MVP. We understand that some fellows will prefer clearly outlined tasks while others will prefer to lean on their creativity to get the job done. Our team is open to both in order to ensure a good experience for fellows.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

Our Dash product leverages behavioral science principles to help First-Generation college students anticipate their intentions around academic and wellness outcomes. Dash is a browser extension that turns your new tab into a simple web app featuring actionable & predictive insights to stay ahead, a mood tracker to understand emotions in real-time, and a countdown timer for bedtime, due dates, and calendar events. We are currently transitioning from prototype to MVP phase for our Dash browser extension. In addition, we are researching the market and crafting business development plans to reach both college students and college admin. Fellows will have the opportunity to make major contributions to these efforts.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Business Fellow will work on:
1. Ambassador Program that spreads the brand on college campuses
2. Market & customer research on different Higher Ed stakeholders and First-Gen students
3. Develop and execute interviewing and surveying strategy
4. Help develop go-to-market strategy
5. Explore grant opportunities

Software Engineering Fellow will work on:
Enhance our Dash app/dashboard with extended features integrating with the Canvas LMS API and Google's Calendar API
Software Engineering Fellow skills should include:
• data modeling, data analysis, backend data infrastructure development
• experience consuming and/or building REST and/or GraphQL APIs
• authentication and authorization flows

Flock is building the next-gen eCommerce experience. We are a gamified and social eCommerce platform for the beauty & wellness shopper.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

We're a VIP-X company with external funding that is changing the way customers shop online. We have a beta product out so the VIP fellow who joins us will get hands-on experience with a startup that's in the market and get access to real customer data. In addition, ideas or initiatives will be implemented quickly as Flock is testing and iterating so you can see the direct impact of your work.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are iterating our product based on customer feedback. We have a presence across 4 universities.

Our next milestones are to expand our presence on college campuses, build partnerships with other businesses to drive Flock awareness, and source and onboard more beauty & wellness brands onto the Flock platform.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Marketing: Email marketing, paid social media marketing, interest in testing and iterating on marketing initiatives

Business Development: Overseeing and growing our partnerships with our ambassadors and clubs across different universities, sourcing and negotiating new brands to join the Flock platform

VC/Fundraising: Analyzing data for pitch decks, sourcing VCs and angels who would be good partner fit for Flock

GigApp (in the process of being renamed) is the first ever SaaS solution for HR management of freelance workers in medium to large sized companies. By 2027 over 50% of the U.S workforce is expected to be freelancing and today over 80% of medium to large corporations rely on freelancers. Gigapp will establish the gold standard for onboarding/offboarding, collaboration and relationship building with the freelancer. In addition to supporting companies to manage these relationships better, it will provide important tools and analytics for the freelancer to effectively scale their business and increase data driven decision making.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

The venture is in the very early stages and the VIP Fellow work would have a significant impact on the business's strategy and direction. The VIP fellow would be exposed to all steps of an early-stage company and will have significant autonomy to choose what part of the company or strategy they are most interested in working. If there is a strong fit and complementary skill set there is an opportunity for this person to become a co-founder or executive hire. Otherwise, I am an executive MBA student at Wharton and have over 15 years of experience working in large tech and financial corporations and managing teams. I would be able to mentor the fellow throughout the program and as they consider their next steps after graduation.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are currently developing a prototype for the product. We have hired a freelance agency to create the design. The next stage is to establish the beachhead and get feedback from potential users, validate the concept and prepare to present the venture to VC companies for funding.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Technical skills, strategic thinking, data analytics, high interest and/or experience in tech platforms and development, and good communicator. 

Groov utilizes mobile scanning to bring a fully-custom footwear experience to mass-market consumers. See our teaser.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Groov is unique in its combination of both software and physical goods. Groov is taking a proven product that has been historically, and unnecessarily, medicalized -- the fully-custom foot orthotic (see here for evidence of how important these are to Lebron and other NBA stars) -- and utilizing novel supply chain infrastructure and customer intake mechanisms to repackage it as athleisure and be a first-mover in the future of footwear mass-customization. Additionally, Groov has raised funding and is moving quickly to standardize operations, launch, and scale.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are currently approaching our soft-launch, putting the finishing touches on our initial brand presence (as we depart from stealth mode) and rolling out slowly to early adopters, with an eye towards operational inefficiencies, partnership development, and marketing push.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

? Interest in the product, self-starting initiative, boldness / willingness to take on responsibility and make decisions, follow-through

Guthrie Estimating is a B2B venture outsourcing/centralizing the $20B worth of redundant commercial preconstruction tasks that subcontractors spend money on before they are competing for a job.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Guthrie Estimating is unique because we don’t have to build an engineering product, meaning that a Fellow will get hands-on experience working with actual clients from day 1. Importantly, this venture has commitments for work this summer, so there is an opportunity for continued collaboration after this semester. Lastly, as a JD/MBA, I look forward to mentoring our Fellow in the intersection of law and business.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

Guthrie Estimating is refining the product market fit and experimenting with different operational models. We have validated that the demand exists, but we have not figured out our LTV/CAC yet. The fellow that we work with will help us evaluate pricing models by working with clients to measure the difference in transaction costs associated with in-house preconstruction estimates and our outsourced solution. Our next milestone is achieving unit economics which allows us to hire an outside estimator.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Technical skills are not required for this role. We want to work with a Fellow who is excited about working in the B2B space, specifically with clients in the construction industry. We want a Fellow who is intellectually curious and ready to take initiative.

inSKU develops AI/ML-enabled software to help convenience and grocery stores with decision making and automation across inventory management, pricing, assortment planning, and digital capabilities. Integrated with a POS system or as a standalone app, inSKU provides optimized suggestions to aid managers with the hundreds of choices they make a day.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Our team comes from Big Tech companies such as Uber Eats and Facebook as engineering leaders and business managers; this venture addresses pain points experienced and blind spots overlooked from our collective work experience. As a result, the VIP Fellow will not only gain valuable industry experience but also create a project portfolio that will certainly resonate in interviews, networking, and future careers in tech.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

The team is in the market discovery and validation phase. While we have relationships with target customers in the local Philadelphia area and built prototypes, we are currently working on getting the products into user hands, testing, and iterating upon feedback received. Our next milestone is to then identify the 1-2 features that are most useful for customers while being feasible to build and create the MVP.

Our fellow will chart the direction of our end product by understanding our end consumer and their pain points, designing the product and its interface to be easy to understand and comfortable to interact with, and building the product to address the needs of our customer. The Fellow will have an opportunity to put their fingerprints on all aspects of the emerging business.


• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are looking for enthusiasm and a willingness to get your hands dirty. Retail and especially food and beverage is a tough business, and an ability to get “on the ground” to understand customer feedback is both crucial and a defining cultural edge for our venture.

While specific skill sets are not as important, we have the most urgent need for technical, business development, and design abilities.

For the technical role, we are looking for experience with React, Node.JS, or Python.

For the business role, we are looking for experience with or willingness to learn user research, customer segmentation, and product roadmapping.

InterConnect (Interpretation Connect) is a Penn student-led organization dedicated to connecting culturally aware, bilingual students with local public health/medical clinics, disaster relief centers, legal institutions, and other community agencies to assist with the provision of accessible on-demand, on-site translation/interpretation services.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for translators/interpreters is skyrocketing, with a projected 20% increase in job openings by 2031 – however, staffing shortages for interpreters continue to strain the outreach and quality of care of community agencies.

By establishing an untapped student network of volunteer translators/interpreters and activists, InterConnect hopes to address the shortage of on-hand interpreters and the lack of human connection that comes with online interpretation. We hope to ultimately create a platform through which community clients can book student translators/interpreters to assist their limited English proficiency (LEP) service pools, bridging the cultural and linguistic barriers to inclusive care.

As InterConnect is still an early-stage venture, the input of all fellows who join will be hugely influential and translated into tangible progress for the organization. Transitioning of fellows to more leadership-based roles may be encouraged with increased involvement. If you are interested in community service, honing new business development skills, or making a difference in the Penn/Philly community, we would love to hear from you!

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are currently an early-stage organization that has validated and will continue to refine our market concept through the formation of a Board of Directors and conduction of user interviews (with current Philadelphia interpreters, medical professionals, service workers, and Penn students). Our next step is to establish external and Penn-internal partnerships and acquire more funding for our development – hopefully with the help of our fellows!

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are looking for fellows interested in helping out with:

Outreach
• Responsible for reaching out and establishing connections with service and community partnership organizations and supporting Penn faculty, as well as prospective clients

Strategy
• Conducting further market research into the translation service industry through user interviews, secondary research, and briefs
• Strategizing ways to establish an internal interpretation training curriculum or formal partnerships with third-party programs to certify student language proficiency

Fundraising/Finance
• Identify fundraising opportunities (grant applications, events, etc) and implement corresponding strategies to acquire funding
• Manage budgeting and finances in a orderly manner to ensure that InterConnect is prepared to allocate fundraised funds appropriately

Technical Development
• Responsible for creating a landing site
• * Experience in front-end coding and design preferred

Roles may be combined or expanded depending on fit. Overall, we are looking for fellows who are driven, creative, and agile, as well as comfortable with working in a rapidly evolving, team-oriented environment.

Jochi is an EdTech platform that partners with Middle and High schools to support their students with their day-to-day needs beyond the classroom.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Jochi is a SAAS based EdTech startup seeking to create a more fulfilling less stressful schooling experience for middle & high school students. We offer a mobile & web application that directly integrates with schools’ existing LMS and calendar systems, that supports students with their day-to-day needs beyond the classroom. This includes planning their schedules, scheduling meetings withs peers/faculty, engaging in extracurricular activities, and developing study skills. Through our platform we hope to not only create a better experience for students but enable them to develop critical life skills.

We are at a very exciting stage, where every bit of work will have tremendous impact on Jochi’s future. We have just finished development and will be launching a pilot program in the coming months. Our fellowship is very unique given you will be interacting with actual customers, hearing their feedback, marketing the product, and more. A chance to be exposed to real life start up work!

Additionally, our team is great! We take pride that we are an entirely student-run team, who are mentored by alum. Being a student and working part-time is not easy. So, our hours and workload are very flexible to your schedule.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are currently between implementation/launch. Our next big milestone are establishing ourselves in the EdTech market and securing early partners. Through our marketing, business development, and product management fellowships, fellows will be exposed to what it is like working at an early stage start-up while making a difference, developing relevant skills, and being a part of a close-knit community.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Looking for students who are passionate, creative, motivated and eager to learn with the ability to work hard!

Business Development
• Reach out to potential partners for pilot program
• Lead meetings with prospective partners
• Develop pricing plan
• Designated manager for a pilot school

Product
• Run onboarding sessions
• Design material for pilot partners to share feedback
• Check in with partners regularly about experience
• Compile bugs, errors, and improvements platform can have - discuss with development team

Keye is a VC Backed subscription marketplace, with a mission to open up access to digital content and tools. We want to empower people by giving them on-demand access to technologies that improve their lives at the best possible value. 75% of interested users do not fit the profile of active users of the platform and remained untapped so far. They also tend to be the biggest pain point for subscription services. This is where Keye comes in. With Keye, vendors and creators can offer content to new users on a limited basis. Users pay a discounted price, and Keye facilitates discovery and monetization.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Keye is a one-of-a-kind marketplace that is looking to solve the problem of inflexible subscription pricing by offering users the ability to choose their subscription usage on the go and hence have more control over their spending. Our unique business model benefits both our customers as well as vendors and looks to bridge the gap between the two.

We are a tight-knit and passionate team of 6, comprising 3 Co-Founders (ex-Google, ex-Microsoft, ex-Accenture, and previous entrepreneurs). We are currently a part of the ERA Accelerator along with funding from that accelerator and have won many awards (TIE NJ, Contrary Capital’s Pitch Night, Jacobson Awards). Also, we are backed by a few VCs like Plug n Play who have had 200+ exits.

Keye offers VIP Fellows the opportunity to get hands-on experience at an early-stage VC-backed venture focused on putting money back in consumers’ pockets while getting them access to more of the content they love. Fellows have an opportunity to contribute to all aspects of the business, including building the subscription platform, working on the backend, building partnerships with content providers and marketing the product to users.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are already revenue generating and currently in talks with some major universities to get Keye access to the students through the universities. On the partnerships front, we have onboarded 40+ partnerships including Masterclass, Grammarly, Crunchbase, Blinktist, SkillShare etc.\ and we are looking to grow our offering further through the feedback we get from our users.

We are currently ramping up our sales. Alongside this, we are looking at high-growth projects in terms of product and engineering, sales, and partnerships.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Fellows have an opportunity to hone in on areas they are passionate about, and we are looking for skills in five specific areas (can apply for individual roles):

Engineering:
o AI/ML/DL Engineer: We are looking for someone who has knowledge about AI models to help us create an AI recommendation tool along with persona and pattern recognition to suggest content to our users. An AI engineer would be responsible for designing and implementing the algorithms and models that drive the recommendations. This might include tasks such as collecting and analyzing data on users and their behavior, developing and training machine learning models, and implementing the recommendation engine in a production environment.
o Full Stack Engineers: Building a quality marketplace requires seamless UX and well-tested backend integrations with our various vendors. A product engineer at Keye will work closely with our product manager and engineers to strategize, implement, and test various user workflows and vendor integrations. They will not only gain technical experience building an end-to-end product from the ground up but also learn to interpret business goals and make tradeoffs to achieve our objective. The candidate should have prior programming experience in an object-oriented language (Java, Python, C++, etc). Bonus points if the candidate has worked on web applications or APIs in the past.

• Creative Writer: Along with marketing efforts we need individuals who have a knack for writing and creating a brand presence through their writing. We are looking for creative writers to not only help us with UX writing but also create and shape our brand through online writing and publishing, including blogs, articles, newsletters, and or on the wiki. If writing is your passion and you want to make an impact in an entrepreneurial setting, we would love to know more about you. Plus points if you have been writing as part of a magazine (school-affiliated or personal blog)

• Strategic Partnerships & Sales: Keye is nothing without the unique content and services provided by partners on our platform. The Partnerships & Sales Fellow will work closely with our co-founders, Director of Partnerships, and the rest of the team to craft the content offering available on Keye and reach out to universities in order to make them aware of our offerings. They will engage with the broader tech community to generate insights as to what their product needs are. Primarily, the work will consist of market research, sourcing, outreach, pitching and negotiation of partnership deals that will grow our offering from a small beta to a large marketplace. Fellows should be comfortable with targeted written and verbal communication, conducting outreach via various channels, and doing basic data analysis and presentations.

• Business Development & Operations: We are looking to ramp up operations at Keye across all departments and to achieve this we will need to fundraise and be agile strategically. The BD Fellow will help in all aspects of fundraising including building pitch decks, helping pitch to investors, as well as helping automate operational inefficiencies in the system. The fellow is expected to have excellent interpersonal skills along with proficiency with creating PowerPoint presentations. Alongside, a rigor to follow the process/have a structured approach to implementation. Master-level students are welcome to apply.

• Social Media Manager & Content Creator: We are looking for enthusiastic individuals who like to interact and express themselves through social media. We are not only in search of good content creators but also fellows who want to learn about all aspects of marketing including email marketing, marketing analytics, and overall marketing strategy. You will directly work with the Co-Founders to define and execute the marketing strategy.

We are looking for passionate individuals and if you do not have these specific skillsets but still think can add value to the firm, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at contact@keye.co.

KYTE is a drone delivery company with a patented solution that makes drone deliveries quieter and safer (even in strong winds) -- allowing us to be first (and eventually win) in dense, metro areas.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

KYTE is preparing to launch a pilot by the end of the year. It has been working closely with the FAA on a regulatory-compliant path forward (more details can be provided in a follow-up call).

To launch this pilot, we are developing a variety of proprietary hardware and software components. The hardware includes various avionics and other drone-related technologies. The software includes a mobile app and other supporting software for drone delivery operations.

The hardware and software will work together to not only make deliveries, but also produce/analyze various real-world data (e.g., object detection, classification, and avoidance) eventually using AL/ML techniques.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

KYTE has a working prototype and is now rapidly iterating through the MVP process. KYTE is still pre-product-market-fit but is in discussions with enterprise customers in various verticals (e.g., healthcare, food delivery, etc.).

During the spring, we will raise funds from investors as well as engage enterprise customers for a pilot.

While there are many different projects a VIP Fellow can help with, the following are some projects we know will be available for this spring: 1) customer and investor pitch preparation, including building financial models for revenue/profit forecasts, 2) go-to-market strategy and plan; competitive analysis; 3) UI/UX design for web/mobile apps; 4) software development; and 5) hardware development. VIP Fellows are welcome to propose other projects they're interested in as well.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

As seen in the prior paragraph, there are a variety of projects KYTE will work on this spring. More than any one skill or attribute, we're looking for VIP Fellows that have a strong sense of ownership, good time management, and are excited about building the future of last-mile delivery. We're looking for dreamers that aren't afraid to roll-up their sleeves.

What happens when you start a new hobby, but don't have the right equipment / stuff? LCKR is your answer. LCKR is a rental platform that uses smart lockers to facilitate the exchange of hobby-based equipment. LCKR users can affordably access the equipment they need, and make money renting the items they don't.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Founded by young, urban, MBA students, LCKR has emerged from a deep knowledge of and experience with the issues that our target segment is facing. We never want anyone to feel left out because they don't have the items they need, when they need them. The founding team has over a decade of professional consulting experience, both ranging from the consumer product space to emerging technology solutions.

While peer-peer rental market platforms have emerged on the scene, few solutions have become mainstream. Through our usage of smart lockers and being focused on hobby-based equipment, our venture will provide a meaningful, safe and accessible solution to current gaps in the market. We're excited for you to join as a VIP Fellow and become a part of our LCKR journey. We will provide you the experience to develop and launch a pilot as we eventually scale our solution.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are finalizing our customer discovery phase, as we await funding from non-equity based grants. With these grants we seek to run a pilot experiment in Philadelphia. In the interim, we will continue to build out our website and mobile app. You can make an impact through developing external partnerships with vendors and potential buyers, or helping support the physical locker deployment or software development/user experience of the app.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are looking for VIP Fellows with the following skills:
• Technical - Website / mobile app development
• Technical - Hardware infrastructure and safety
• Engineering / Design - Smart locker design (potential to 3D print through Tangen Labs)
• Legal - Compliance, risk, incidental/insurance
• Design - Website / mobile app design

LICK breakfast company focused on flavored pre-packaged/on-the-go chia pudding.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Chia pudding is often seen made at home and prepped the night before, especially by consumers who opt for fuller, protein-filled breakfasts. By creating packaged flavored varieties that would be available in cafes (e.g. local coffee shops or major Starbucks, or major groceries stores like Whole Foods), LICK aims to replace the planning and effort needed to make chia pudding the night before. It is a small venture that has an ability to expand and revolutionize prepped, healthified breakfast meals -- with an emphasis of starting your day with a protein and fiber filled effortless breakfast! (Think of the yogurt revolution in 2000s and its ability to expand and dominate grocery aisles; LICK is replacing alternative dairy-free yogurts [high sugar, low protein] and aiming to popularize chia pudding as a staple breakfast option with vegan and premium ingredients). This is a great experience for anyone passionate about plant-focused foods and wellness through nutrition.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

LICK is currently finalizing flavors by testing ingredient combinations and gathering feedback from the local community. The next milestone is to focus solely on branding through social and grassroots marketing. VIP Fellows can help make an impact by leveraging social media expertise and experience to think creatively about designs, brand, and presence to create online targets for very specific consumers (e.g. female athletes, new mothers, individuals with nutrition-focused lifestyles).

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

LICK is looking for VIP Fellows with passion for wellness & nutrition, first and foremost! It would be helpful to have knowledge of early successful food brands (e.g. GoNanas, Spoonful, MUSH) and/or an understanding of social media tools and strategies.

Magnify makes collaborating on startup projects 10x easier.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Hiring full-time founding team members is one of the most important decisions a startup can make given the founding team sets the tone of the company. 65% high potential fails due to founding team conflicts. Onboarding full-time team members are also costly and time-consuming: pre-revenue startups simply can't afford to bring on full-time team members to close every skill gap and freelancers lack the necessary operating experience to build at scale.

Magnify is the one-stop shop for startup collaboration. We enable startups and builders to collaborate on part-time projects, full-time roles, and co-foundership.

Our team is co-led by a former early-stage investor and an exited founder in the future of work. We have 10+ years of combined experience in investing, recruiting, engineering, and design. This is our second year working with Penn VIP Program and we make it a priority to provide growth opportunities and mentorship during the fellowship and ensure that fellows are working on high-impact tasks.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are a VC-backed company with initial traction from pilots and partnerships. We are launching our MVP in January and fellows will work closely with the leadership team on GTM, customer pipeline, and partnerships.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are looking for builders and operators who are excited to wear many hats and will own key business processes, create and execute high-priority tasks, and serve as a point of contact for our customers and partners. Startup experience is preferred but not required. As one of our earliest team members, you are excited to actively shape Magnify's culture and how we work together.

Please indicate your interest in the following roles - we look forward to hearing from you!

Software Development Fellow
- Work with CTO to build development process, tech stack, and architecture
- Develop and iterate on MVP based on customer input
- Talk to customers, tease out use cases, and influence prioritization decisions
- Please share Github account if there is one

Design Fellow
- Support our product prototyping process as we prepare to bring it to market
- Collect and analyze user behavior data through a variety of channels
- Work closely with the team and early customers to influence and execute our strategy
- Please share a link to a portfolio if there is one

Business Development Fellow
- Identifying, qualifying, and developing new partnership opportunities
- Collaborate with leadership with GTM and complete end-to-end sales cycle
- Determine the priority of outreach based on impact

Communications Fellow
- Manage social media accounts across platforms
- Lead external communications, a draft newsletter, and blog posts
- Brainstorm ideas to engage existing and new customers to build brand awareness

MineMe is a platform that enables users to control and monetize their data, while allowing companies to access robust, ethically sourced data. MineMe is built on the following tenets: You own your data. You are in control. And with MineMe, you can monetize.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Today’s data economy is one of the biggest, untapped markets; yet in status quo, this market is controlled by the few tech behemoths. Events like Cambridge Analytica’s data leak and the passage of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations demonstrate that data ownership and privacy are becoming hot-button topics around the world; there are billions of dollars at stake. It’s time for a data revolution, and MineMe is committed to using user consent to unlock a future where data is democratized.

How does it work? Users consent and download our plug-in which securely collects and stores their data. Users maintain complete control over what and with whom data is shared through our sleek and simple interface. MineMe aggregates and anonymizes data into macro datasets that companies license. Users receive a portion of the profits from licensed datasets, creating a secure data marketplace that benefits everyone.

MineMe will revolutionize the way we think about data. Joining us at this early stage will afford you the incredible opportunity to play a hugely influential role in the company’s launch. Fellows will have the opportunity to work on every aspect of an entrepreneurial venture including customer discovery, design, marketing, product and much more. We are committed to creating a hands-on learning experience that will enable you to learn and grow alongside us throughout this entrepreneurial journey.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We have validated our concept through over 100 interviews and survey respondents, with the initial product capability outline. The most exciting steps are to come, and we’re excited to bring on Fellows interested in spearheading/contributing to one or more of our upcoming milestones:
1. Finalize the specs of our initial product offering
2. Finalize branding/user journey on the MineMe platform
3. Stand up our initial website incorporating sleek design, and the continued build-up of our user waitlist
4. Develop an MVP of the plug-in and user interface, with continuous feedback-seeking and iteration
5. Launching with our first enterprise client

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are seeking fellows excited about big data, retail, marketing, and consumer-tech. We are open to a variety of backgrounds as long as fellows are willing to challenge themselves, try new things, bring a new perspective to the team, and learn together.

Key areas of focus:
Product / Design:
- Outline product roadmap
- Initial website and user interface requirement documentation (PRD)
- Initial website and user interface design

Engineering / Development:
- Website build
- Browser / Mobile plug-in design
- Browser / Mobile plug-in build

Marketing / Brand Building:
- Design of logo and brand for MineMe
- End-to-end revamp of the MineMe user/enterprise branded experience (for website, and mobile application)

Partnerships & Customer Liaison:
- Conduct discovery interviews
- Collect and synthesize quantitative and qualitative data to inform design, brand, pricing etc.
- Build relationships with industry experts and potential customers

Mintaka is an online marketplace for wilderness corporate retreats with a social enterprise side, using a portion of the profits to host wilderness training and survival camps for teens in foster care.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

The nature of work is changing. As many companies shift to a remote-first or remote-only workplace, they need ways to bring their employees together for in-person training and collaboration. Mintaka solves a problem that many companies are just realizing they have, putting you as a VIP Fellow on the cutting edge of the evolution of corporate culture. If you're interested in learning more about corporate culture, the outdoor industry, social enterprise, or outdoor recreational therapy, please apply! I've supervised undergraduate and graduate interns before on large, multi-country projects and will make sure you have meaningful work to do, can learn about what you're interested in, and contribute in a resume-building way to Mintaka's bottom line.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

Mintaka launched last summer and is revenue-generating. Over the next few months we will be ramping up our business development as well as working to raise a seed round. We have business development, social enterprise, and finance positions open and have enough work for 3 VIP Fellows. All VIP Fellows will work closely with the CEO/Founder, Breanne White.

Business Development: Looking for a VIP Fellow with experience identifying potential clients for a B2B business (or the desire to learn). Position will include conducting deep research into potential clients and drafting outreach materials, in conjunction with Mintaka contractors. BD Fellow will also conduct market research into the US and global corporate training/retreat market.

Finance: Looking for a VIP Fellow with experience building financial models. A lot of the work will be around projected pricing and sample clients/retreats, working with a variety of pricing options. There is also a possibility of creating a financial tracking system (related to project management) and financial models combining the revenue and social enterprise sides of the business.

(Note: if you're specifically interested in social enterprise, please check out this description on our website and state that specifically in your application. There is a lot of work that can be done here and we can craft the position based on your interest.)

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We're looking for people who care deeply about work/life balance, who love the outdoors, who are passionate about transforming work culture, and who are flexible and motivated. There will be some ambiguity as we navigate this changing market together, but we won't leave you without support on the journey--Mintaka is designed to transform work culture and that starts with our own workplace!

NEPRI is a food company making healthier pasta that redefines comfort food by preserving taste while boosting nutrition.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Our pasta has 3x more protein, 3x more fiber, and 35% fewer carbs
than regular pasta. It is also high in iron, which is essential for maintaining healthy red blood cells and supporting oxygen circulation in the body. This pasta is the perfect choice for anyone looking to boost their nutrition while still enjoying the taste of traditional pasta. It is easy to incorporate into your favorite recipes and is suitable for a wide range of dietary needs, including vegetarian, and vegan diets.

If you are a foodie, interested in nutrition, or want to learn about the consumer retail space then join us! NEPRI is a company that values growth and learning. We offer multiple paths for exploring and developing your skills, including product development, design, and business development - supporting you in reaching your full potential. So if you're looking for a place where you can learn and thrive, come join!

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are excited to announce that we have developed an MVP and are hoping to launch it in the summer. In order to successfully bring our product to market, we have a few projects on the horizon.

First, we will be working on increasing product testing to ensure that our product meets the highest standards of quality. We will also be focusing on creating captivating branding and marketing tactics to help our product stand out in a crowded market. In addition to these internal projects, we will also be working closely with members of our supply chain to ensure that everything runs smoothly when it's time to launch. You are free to pick your projects and the teams you want to work with!

Our target launch date is May, and we plan to organize online drops of our product to get it into the hands of eager customers. We are also reaching out to retail stores with the goal of them carrying our product in their stores this summer.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are looking for fellows passionate about food and interested in a few different areas:

Product Development:
- Organize Product testing (Supertasters, Partnerships, tasting events)
- Work on product pricing (Compiling costs, understanding revenue structure)
- Source ingredients and co-packers (Outreach, communication, factory visits)

Business Development:
- Implementing Marketing Strategies (SEO, Social Media)
- Facilitating Sales (Shipping Logistics, Pricing)
- Website Building (Landing page, E-commerce site)

Design:
- Refine Branding (Branding Guidelines, Icons)
- Build Packaging (Revamping Designs)
- Product Photography (Organize Photoshoots)

NeuroMend is a mobile app that brings visibility and guidance to the concussion recovery process directly to any patient recovering from a concussion. Taking in wearable data, phone camera eye tracking, and inputs from recurring symptom push notification questionnaires, the app provides users 3 AI-generated insights:
1. Where you are, from 0 to 100%, recovered along your concussion recovery process
2. Based on your recovery score, what activities you can participate in and which you should hold off from
3. What exercises you can perform to actively recover your brain and help accelerate your recovery process

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

When you suffer a concussion or mild traumatic brain injury there is a large amount of uncertainty as you're often told you cannot perform any activity and must just lay in the dark for an unknown duration of time. As you do this you have no idea how and if you're recovering and if your brain function will ever return to normal allowing you to feel like yourself. Compare this to a common ankle or knee injury where you are provided a clear time table for your recovery (e.g. "6-8 weeks") and are able to go to rehab to actively recover and accelerate the recovery process. With this, NeuroMend's mission is to remove the uncertainty and stress from recovering from a concussion and make the process as straightforward and clear as recovering from a broken bone or sprained ankle.

This is the opportunity to work on guiding and developing a new digital health tech product from scratch for a clear unmet need that can truly help lives. We have two areas where we could use help and can provide a VIP Fellow a great experience:
1. App Developer & UX Designer: In this role, you'd gain the experience of developing and iterating our a new MVP mobile app from scratch, gaining both development and UX design experience. Additionally, you'd have the opportunity to design both our company logo and website.
2. Market Research & Customer Success Specialist: In this role, you'd gain the early Product Management experience by leading market research and customer interviews to validate our target customer segment and refine the product concept and roadmap.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are at the very early stages of Market Discovery and Customer Validation for venture implementation. Our next milestones are to validate our target customer segment through customer interviews and build an MVP mobile app to be tested and refined through user testing. We have two different opportunities for a fellow to make an impact:
1. App Developer & UX Designer: Build an MVP for our mobile app from scratch, either using no-code tools or software programming. If applicable this can also include designing our company's logo and website.
2. Market Research & Customer Success Specialist: Lead our market research and customer validation process through owning CRM and customer interviews with both concussion patients and medical practitioners who are experts in the space

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We're looking for the following skills for either of our two roles:
1. App Developer & UX Designer: Experience using either no-code tools or programming to build a mobile app. Additionally, experience building UX mock-up's through tools such as Figma and website and logo design are a nice-to-have.
2. Market Research & Customer Success Specialist: Project management experience and experience or interest in designing customer interviews for market research and owning Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Orble is a customer-facing automatic bubble tea machine that enables any establishment to sell dozens of freshly crafted boba beverage options on-site with the tap of a finger. This machine allows our merchants to create a custom “grab-and-go” experience for consumers in ten square feet and a fraction of the cost of opening a boba shop.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Working in food automation is just as delicious as it is innovative. Orble challenges all of the assumptions bubble tea machine manufacturers make in their designs, and as a team of engineers, we place product quality first.

Build alongside us on the cutting edge of IoT and automation, work directly with our customers, investors, and regulatory stakeholders, and join us for tastings in our state-of-the art test kitchen. The VIP Fellow will get to work closely with Orble co-founders and have a significant opportunity to contribute to the company’s strategy and direction.

Our free-standing beverage maker belongs not only alongside vending machines at malls, universities, and other high-traffic public spaces, but also in office break rooms and coworking spaces. This product fits in by the soda fountains at AMC movie theaters, next to Starbucks espresso machines, and by the slurpees at 7-11’s convenience stores. We see Orble everywhere, and we’re looking for a fellow that shares our vision.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are currently a pre-seed company building our MVP. We are in the process of obtaining the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Penn as our first customer. Mechanical Engineering faculty have expressed their support and guidance in the process of securing approval for the installation of our machine within either the Towne, Moore, or Levine engineering buildings after the completion of our first fit-and-finish model in December 2023. To date, we have completed our proof-of-concept prototype in which we built and partially integrated machine subsystems, conducted several rounds of stakeholder outreach, brought on transactional patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret and privacy legal counsel, and built relationships with several interested vendors.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

As a Business Development Fellow, you would:
• Drink a lot of bubble tea, and give input into our recipes and flavors
• Conduct B2B customer and market research, including qualitative interviews, and quantitative survey analysis
• Perform customer segmentation and customer outreach
• Explore hard-tech VC funding and grant opportunities
• Develop go-to-market strategies and navigate health and safety regulatory pathways

[play it forward] is a personalized toyshare subscription disrupting the $90B toy industry. A StitchFix/Rent-the-Runway for toys, our mission is to make parenting easier with an innovative, affordable, and sustainable toy subscription for discovering toys your kids will love, without cluttering your home! Our play experts have scoured the earth for the best toys by age and stage to help parents take the guesswork out of toys. With our hyper-curated approach, and by offering new and pre-loved options for try-before-you-buy or rental, we are helping to reduce clutter (especially plastic) and make play more circular. [Play more, waste less].

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?
  

This will be a unique opportunity for a fellow to help re-define how parents buy toys and have a broader impact on how we as a society combat overconsumption and plastic pollution. Kim Bolt, the founder and CEO, is an experienced marketing and growth executive from Google, ClassPass, Lyft, Under Armour and Disney, and will mentor and teach you about core marketing skills needed to acquire and retain customers.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?
  

Market Development. The next milestone is to take existing feedback and data from a closed-beta test to refine our algorithm and raise a pre-seed friends and family round. The fellow will help us gather data and financial information to help refine the algorithm, set key operational targets, and help refine the business model (rental vs try-before-you buy or both).

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Ideally looking for someone with either 1) operational experience in e-commerce logistics and fulfillment 2) data science and/or 3) finance.

ReHome, co-founded by Wharton/Harvard/MIT students, is a recommerce marketplace for college and graduate students to buy and sell pre-owned furniture and home goods. By creating a trusted space to buy and sell products in a convenient, affordable, and sustainable manner, ReHome aims to make secondhand products consumers' first choice.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

ReHome is on a mission to disrupt how millennial and Gen Z consumers consume--not only because of dire warnings of climate change, environmental degradation, and resource depletion, but also because we believe buying secondhand can simply be more convenient, delightful, and awe-inspiring.

ReHome curates quality assured, cost-effective, pre-loved furniture and home goods to make your temporary space not just where you sleep, but where you create fond memories, build meaningful connections, and find deep belonging. We pride ourselves for keeping products from the landfill by providing both buyers and sellers a hassle-free one-stop listing, shipping, and storage service.

ReHome is built with dual purposes of unlocking the potential of both resources and people. By joining ReHome, you become part of a team that is deeply invested in helping you to achieve your personal and professional aspirations. Co-founders of ReHome have rich and diverse backgrounds in management consulting, software engineering & data science, product management, and entrepreneurship. We would like to make you an integral part of the core team and provide coaching and mentorship to help you grow and develop.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

ReHome is currently in the MVP stage. We aim to launch and make our service available to students at the University of Pennsylvania in the graduation season. To get there, below are some key milestones and how you can become an essential part of our impact:
1. Consumer Insight: Conduct consumer interviews, surveys, and research to gain unique insights into consumers' desires, behavior, and price sensitivity.
2. Online Product Design: Based on consumer insights, design online user experience, interface, and branding. Test alpha and beta versions of products with target users.
3. Offline Experience Design: Based on consumer insights, design offline user experience, including interfacing with logistical partners to together deliver the most delightfully convenient experience.
4. Logistics Partnership: Outreach and build partnerships with logistics partners in shipping, moving, storage, and delivery sectors.
5. Customer Acquisition: Acquire users in both alpha/beta phases and launch phase. Design mechanism to minimize customer acquisition cost while optimizing word-of-mouth communication, conversion rate, and customer lifetime value.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP fellow?

As we have ambitious targets, we are looking for several purpose-driven and highly motivated self-starters to become an integral part of our core team to accelerate progress. Candidates with any of the following backgrounds would be ideal but we are open to everyone passionate about circular economy and sustainable consumption, and eager to learn and grow.
- Consumer and market research, including qualitative interviews, quantitative survey analysis, and desktop research
- Web product design (esp. marketplaces or consumer-facing web products in general)
- Operations (esp. logistics and/or e-commerce industry)
- Quantitative analysis (esp. price sensitivity)
- Branding, marketing, and social media management (esp. sustainable branding)

RezFlip is for buying and selling second-hand restaurant reservations. Current restaurant reservation apps charge cancellation fees if you do not show up, but with RezFlip, you can sell your booking and avoid the cancellation fees altogether.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Our venture is unique because it is changing how people think about restaurant reservations. StubHub is a nationwide marketplace where one can buy or sell a ticket to any event. Through RezFlip, we plan to create this marketplace for buying and selling restaurant reservations. In addition, we have much room for expansion and will soon focus on new locations and different kinds of reservation markets - like hotel reservations, Etc. Because we have so much more to do and are a small group, working with our company will provide an excellent experience for the VIP Fellow. The fellow’s voice will be heard and appreciated.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

Currently, the app is on the app store for pre-save. Our launch day is February 13th (just in time for Valentine's day). We need to focus on two steps: a. how to promote the app and get it widely used and b. how to go out and raise capital and pitch to investors. Our fellow can mainly help with running our social media channels, reaching out to influencers, and advising on the pitch to potential investors.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are looking for someone very familiar with all forms of social media: Instagram, Snapchat, and Tiktok. We also want a fellow interested in the food and beverage space.

Robotics and Automation Corporation aims to deliver application-specific robotic systems to reliably perform cleaning and sanitation work and reduce human exposure to hazardous materials and waste, improve overall cleanliness, and reduce operational expenses for commercial cleaning services, hospitality, retail, airport, stadium and restaurant customers.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Robotics industry is at the cusp of a tech revolution with market growth projected to reach $160B by 2030 with 40% CAGR. Our venture is looking to push innovation envelope with ultra fast deep-learning techniques and transform robotics systems with increased perception, effectiveness and robustness to perform cleaning and sanitation in any unstructured and cluttered environment. If you are passionate about cutting edge technologies and transforming everyday life with fully automated robots, then Robotics and Automation Corporation is an excellent opportunity to start your journey at.

The two founders bring over 38 years of combined executive leadership experience as business growth leader and technologist with expertise in building high-tech products for government, B2B customers and end-consumers. Given we are at the early stage of this venture, you will have an excellent opportunity to accelerate your career with increasing responsibilities, work in a flexible environment and manage a variety of tasks to learn and thrive with creativity.

The VIP fellow is poised for a good experience he/she will engage in developing machine learning models, prototype development, customer discovery and product-market fit. The VIP fellow will have the opportunity to learn from founders, develop skills in product and technology development, and apply entrepreneurial skills to develop the business from the ground up.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

At this point, we are interviewing potential customers to refine product requirements. Our initial idea submissions got accepted at NSF SBIR. Our next milestone is to develop it into a full project proposal which will first focus on significantly reducing technical and execution risk by developing and testing robot perception, control and cleaning actions in a virtual simulated environment. In parallel, we intend to start a multi-axis multi-degree of freedom robotic arm prototype development that can execute a variety of tasks such as skim, collect, scrub, absorb, wipe or gather waste for safe clean disposal.

The VIP fellow can innovate to develop first of a kind deep learning techniques that identify and classify objects, and develop automation plans for efficient cleaning actions. The VIP fellow can make a big impact by translating customer requirements and competitive strategies to define product from ground-up and drive prototype development. The VIP fellow will also have the opportunity to do costing analysis, develop product pricing strategy, drive partnerships and define sales and marketing strategy. Depending on the VIP fellow candidates experience and interests, we are flexible in having above project scope managed by one or two fellows. Please feel free to reach out if you have ideas or interests in exploring other project opportunities.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

- Passion for experimentation and ability to deal with ambiguity
- Values continuous learning and desire to thrive
- Confident, self-motivated individual with strong, demonstrable bias for action
- Previous experience in designing, developing, and researching machine learning systems, models and schemes is a plus
- Business Savvy with experience in costing, pricing, product and prototype development, go-to-market strategy is a plus

Rooted is creating a new genre of fast-casual that is rooted in simplicity - hence the name Rooted. We’re bringing transparency to your lunch plate by only using 7 household ingredients or fewer to make your meal.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Rooted is here to reframe the "may contain" label that we see all over our fast-casual menus. 1/4 individuals in the United States have a confirmed food allergy and 1/3 of individuals suspect they have food allergies or intolerances. And yet, we still aren't quite sure what is in our food. For instance, the 'olive oil’ listed at fast-casual restaurant Cava's menu is actually 75% sunflower oil and 20% olive oil, and the consumer would have no idea unless they asked their server. When you have an issue metabolizing food - or even if you are just trying to live a healthier lifestyle - ingredient transparency is crucial. In the former case, even deadly.

Rooted would give a VIP Fellow tangible experience innovating the food and beverage space, improving food inclusivity, and leading supply chain operations and logistics. We are looking for a VIP fellow who can lead research, website development, and or the accounting aspect of our business. As a fellow, you will be crucial to our understanding of today's fast-casual market, FDA regulations, supply chain logistics, and commercial US real estate market trends.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are an early-stage company hoping to launch Spring 2024. We are currently working on refining our menu, better understanding our cost structure, exploring ways to maintain healthy margins without compromising quality, understanding US food rules and regulations, and understanding the operations of our competitors. Fellows will take center stage in this role and create long-standing impact by directly taking ownership over various projects within the company regarding the above listed milestones.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

I am in search of someone with strong technical skills (accounting, research, finance, or technology). They must have a passion for food inclusivity and or fast casual dining. Rooted is an early-stage company - VIP Fellows must have adaptability and excellent communication skills.

Qrew is a social network of founders and subject matter experts. We introduce founders to service professionals vetted through common connections. No Stars! No Reviews! Good old relationships.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Qrew is in a critical stage in its life, working on customer acquisition and in search of an institutional round of investment. This offers VIP Fellows the unique opportunity to roll up their sleeves, dive in head first, and leave an indelible mark on the product and the business. Our two founders (a Wharton Executive MBA and a top design consultancy leader) share 20+ years of management, strategy and operations consulting, and digital consumer experience design along with a lot of energy and excitement. We want our VIP Fellows to have a "seat at the table" and rely on them in management and business strategy discussions. We will strive to make this fellowship a great opportunity for you and a huge value add for Qrew!

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

Qrew is a Delaware-based C-Corporation and has raised $150K Pre-seed funding for the MVP. The app is launched in Apple Store in 2022 and has ~400 users. We are currently working with X-Wharton consultants to shape marketing, branding, and strategy to achieve hockey stick growth numbers. There is a great opportunity for VIP Fellows to wear multiple hats and help us with several activities, including but not limited to customer acquisition strategy, product management, and business development.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We are looking for two VIP Fellows with the following skill sets:
• An MBA or undergrad, student who is interested in Strategy and operations. We currently need help with fund raising efforts, go-to market strategy execution, identification and creation of key operational performance indicators, product management for simplification and enhancements.
• An MBA or undergrad student who is interested in business development, sales, and partnerships. In this role, you will help us reach out to various potential partners to explore synergies, nurture relations with new and existing service professionals of the app and identify verticals to penetrate to further improve the customer base. Ideate and identify new revenue generation streams based on your conversations with service professionals and potential partners.

SecureFlow is the first-ever web-based platform that streamlines the workstreams required to exchange cash in mergers and acquisitions.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

SecureFlow is the first platform of its kind. As former private equity investors and investment bankers, we understand that PE and VC investors spend countless hours on manual and Excel-based administrative tasks. Two processes that are particularly tedious are the funds flow process and advisor network management.

SecureFlow streamlines the funds flow through cloud-based configurable templates, reducing complexity, wasted time, and execution and privacy risks. SecureFlow’s expense analytics and strategy planning tools aggregate and analyze advisor fees and utilization across deals to help clients better understand their advisor networks.

We’ll integrate the Fellow into our world of M&A, private equity, fintech, payments, product development, fundraising, and customer testing. We have multiple workstreams within each of these categories, and we’ll work with you from the onset to determine which interests you the most! One of the founders was a Fellow in VIP-F last year so that experience will allow us to craft the best fellowship for you.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?
  

We have incorporated as a C-corp., contracted a team of full-stack developers, developed a prototype, conducted dozens of customer interviews, received free trial interest from PE funds, and fundraised from friends & family. Immediate next steps are completing the MVP by early 2023, customer testing, and additional fundraising. We are working with our full-stack development team to push forward MVP development but could use more engineering hands on deck. Other key workstreams that a Fellow could help with are fundraising, website design, SOC2 compliance, customer testing, and product design.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Any of the following:

• Front end and/or backend development experience
• Website design experience
• UI/UX experience
• Customer testing interest or experience
• SOC2 compliance knowledge
• “Utility person” mentality: we have several workstreams that a non-technical Fellow would be extremely helpful

SIVIS ensures high-performing individuals reach their full potential and lead their most fulfilling lives. We do this by carefully curating cohorts of 12 exceptional members and putting them through a year’s worth of high-touch in-person programming created by experts to help the cohort create deep bonds.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

At SIVIS, we believe there is nothing more important than the company we keep. In a world that increasingly encourages superficial breadth, we help exceptional individuals develop deep bonds with an amazing cohort.

A few things that make us unique
(1) WE’RE NOT A TECH STARTUP - Yup…you read that right. Of course, we’d love to leverage technology where we can, but it’s not the core of our offering. This does provide a great opportunity for a tech-savvy fellow to come in and kick some ass. If you kick enough ass, you might just become the CTO.
(2) SIVIS provides value by leveraging expertise on creating deep bonds among tight-knit groups via exceptional experiences. Our team includes former U.S. Military Special Operations soldiers, professional sports coaches, and award-winning hospitality leaders.
(3) SIVIS IS OPERATIONAL - We mean this in two ways…first, SIVIS has already launched a pilot cohort. We’re live. Second, to execute on our vision we value talented and imaginative operations folks. No matter how much whiteboarding you do (and we frikin' love whiteboarding), to run world-class in-person experiences you got to get out there and do it. If you’re interested in real operations and want a chance to go from planning to implementation in the course of your fellowship, this is a can’t miss.

We have several projects that provide a great learning opportunity for those interested in operations, content marketing, and entertainment/hospitality!

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

This fall, we launched our inaugural in-person event with our pilot cohort, a 12-person group of exceptional individuals. Our members include former NFL players, Olympic athletes, elite college athletes, and U.S. Military Special Operations veterans. Via feedback from our pilot cohort and learnings from execution we are honing the SIVIS offering in preparation for a wider launch in Summer 2023.

In the meantime, we are fully focused on providing a world-class experience to our pilot cohort and building our broader go-to-market plan. We have a few milestones that we hope to achieve within the next 6 months.
1. Attract 1000 qualified applicants for SIVIS by July 01, 2023.
2. Execute remaining programming for our pilot cohort through May 01, 2023
• Host 2 more exceptional in-person events
(We’ve already executed 1)
• Provide exclusive access to hard-to-get restaurant reservations
and social events (e.g., sports games, entertainment, etc.)
• Curate engaging content to share with our cohort on a weekly/bi-
weekly basis
3. Build and launch an outstanding content-marketing campaign across to-be-determined channels to create awareness of the SIVIS brand and attract qualified applicants by April 01, 2023.
4. Build a database/menu of world-class in-person programming that can be sorted by activity, providers, location, and cost by April 01, 2023. This will be used for marketing purposes and for execution.

Milestones 2, 3, and 4 support milestone #1.

If you join our team, you will own one of these projects/subprojects end to end and be encouraged to explore your own ideas and experiments. The founder of SIVIS will provide guidance and host weekly check-ins, while executing alongside you and supporting you.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

+ WE WANT PEOPLE WITH ENERGY & PASSION. If you’ve got it, bring it. We’re here for it! LFG…

+ We are looking for self-starters who are passionate about the power of deep social connection. We believe it can be life-changing. Do you?

+ You should be pumped to gain experience in operations, content marketing, and/or entertainment/hospitality. Prior experience is preferred, but not necessary.

+ We’re open-minded and hope you are too. If you want to propose your own project based on this posting, we’d love to see it.

*We will consider all of our Fellows for extended internships and full-time roles based on performance (primarily) and funding availability (secondarily)*

Tapper is an all-in-one app for small and medium-sized home service professionals (handyman, electricians, plumbers etc.) in North America to help them manage and grow their entire business from one place on their phone.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

I initially had the idea that things need to change when I hired contractors for real estate work and ended up having to mail them checks that took 1-2 weeks. After digging deeper and conducting customer interviews with professionals in this space, I noticed the problem is bigger than payments. Home service professionals are currently piecing together different technologies to power their business and lack an integrated app that brings convenience and speed to their business for which time is money.

Few industries are as large and underserved by software as home service. Despite being a $500Bn market with 5 million workers in the US alone, there’s very few notable players in the vertical SaaS business, even fewer targeting SMEs. I believe Tapper has a rare opportunity to grow in this largely untapped market.

With Tapper, VIP Fellows will have the real opportunity to help building something from the very beginning and influence its trajectory. We value input from diverse opinions and all accepted suggestions will go into the final product and make real impact for users. Great value-adders have the opportunity of becoming co-founders.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We are in the process of building our first MVP. Our most immediate goal and milestone is to have the MVP done before beta user testing. We look forward to working with talented Fellows who have experience or interest in building real-world mobile applications. The Fellows will be working with us to build the app from the ground up.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Skills: Payments, fintech strategy or mobile app building & design experiences
Attributes: Committed, problem solver, good communicator, curious and willing to learn

ToxiSense, a fast-growing VC-backed biotech startup, is genetically engineering a greener world by developing plant-based biosensors for bacterial toxin contamination in medical products and drinking water.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

At ToxiSense, we are a close-knit, ambitious team that has consistently broken barriers and defied expectations. Our mission is simple: we are developing a more sustainable and cost-effective future for bacterial endotoxin testing. To do so, we are engineering plant cells as natural biosensors for these toxins. Our market is huge—from medicines, vaccine needles, and IVs to the very water you drink, billions of dollars are spent on mandatory endotoxin testing every year. There is no other technology on the market that competes with the current outdated method. Because of this, we are confident in the huge potential of our new plant-based testing technology.

ToxiSense is entirely powered by current Penn sophomores from Wharton, Engineering, and the College—together we have built a streamlined team that is quickly bringing our technology to market. As just freshmen, we raised about $100K of funding in only one school year. We have strong backing from the Penn and Venture Lab entrepreneurial ecosystem—we’ve won numerous large awards including being the Grand Prize Winner of the 2022 Venture Lab Startup Challenge. In addition, we are VC-backed, receiving funding from the hard-tech VC firm HAX and being selected for their incubator program.

Now, where do you step in? As ToxiSense continues to expand, we offer the unique opportunity for you to be actively involved at the forefront of bringing an industry-shifting biotech product to market. For anyone interested in the biotech industry, genetic engineering, life sciences, or social impact, there is no better opportunity than ToxiSense to gain a hands-on, in-depth experience in contributing to our R&D, learning about the IP and regulatory landscape in the space, and assisting us with customer discovery and bringing our technology to market.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

On the science side, we have a fully developed MVP and are currently working on R&D to improve the accuracy of our bacterial toxin testing technology, as well as increase its ease of use before ultimately sending out our first test kits to consumers. As an R&D Fellow, you will help contribute to the design of our research framework and work with our scientific team to design experimental methodologies and test hypotheses.

On the business side, we are currently fundraising primarily through non-equity grants, including NSF and SBIR grants we are applying for. We are also working to get our IP in place, with the aim of obtaining utility and design patents to fully protect our technology and product. We are also actively working with several VC firms and accelerators for equity investments in the near future. As a Business Dev & Strategy Fellow, you will work directly with our leadership team to explore new funding avenues, conduct customer research and acquisition, and plan out our pathway through the biotech regulatory landscape.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Research & Development:
- Drive R&D hypotheses and implementation
- Intern at our Pennovation lab space
- Develop a patentable test kit
Abilities: Strong background in Life Sciences & Engineering, Familiarity with common lab techniques/skills, Flexibility to work in-person at our lab, hard-working, enthusiastic and fun to be around!

Business Dev & Strategy:
- Explore Biotech VC funding and grant opportunities
- Develop go-to market strategies and regulatory pathways
- Build customer segmentation and customer outreach
Abilities: Familiarity with early-stage venture Biz Dev work, understands biotech and healthcare ecosystems well, hard-working, flexible, enthusiastic, and fun to be around!

TrueValue Hub is a B2B SaaS solution for manufacturers that drives sustainable savings on direct material purchases through data-driven lean sourcing processes, supply chain resilience, optimization engine, and supplier collaboration.

• What is unique about your venture, and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

Truevalue Hubs patentable data-driven platform, is the first-of-its-kind innovative platform to leverage AI and big data to drive strategic sourcing insights and supplier collaboration that drives sustainable savings and supply chain resilience for buyers and suppliers. This is a unique solution in the procurement supply chain, solving strategic sourcing challenges. My co-founder and I have over two decades of industry experience in the supply chain and engineering profession in both large and small companies. We have experienced firsthand the pain points with current supply chain platforms and their inability to drive promised value, resulting in poor adoption and user experience.

TrueValue Hub is a dynamic environment of 20 + global professionals with diverse backgrounds. This is a fast-paced environment with the opportunity to gain hands-on start-up experience and see the impact of your effort on the product and the company in a short span of time.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

We have a working MVP and piloting the solution with select customers. We are also building a pipeline of customers for future pilots. We have a team of 7 developers and 2 Product managers working on the platform to develop the product as per the schedule.

The VIP fellow can help in product development, marketing strategy, and development of the AI engine.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

We’re looking for self-driven individuals passionate about working in a startup environment with some experience/education background in the following areas.

Marketing Strategy: This role will help VIP Fellow acquire marketing skills and knowledge while developing TrueValue Hub’s marketing strategy. Some knowledge of prior marketing through coursework and/or work experience is preferred.
o Support in developing the marketing strategy
o Prepare GO-TO market strategy
o Customer segmentation by Industry vertical, size and geography.
o Market research and analysis
o Prepare promotional marketing materials
o Customer survey and support in customer interviews

Product Development: This role will work closely with the Product Manager and the Program manager (software development) and will gain hands-on experience in product development. This role can make a significant impact on the product features and roadmap as the product is getting developed. VIP fellows with engineering background are preferred for this role.
o Support in developing the Product roadmap
o Product and features Analysis and development
o Business/product Analysis
o UI/UX analysis and recommendations
o Competitive benchmark
o Data analysis

Data science/Business Analysis: This role will work closely with the CEO and the Program manager on the AI engine development and Data Analysis. This role can make a significant impact on product roadmap as the AI engine is getting developed. VIP fellows with strong data analysis, AI/ML, statistics skills are preferred or this role.
o Cost modeling and insights on 13M+ electronic component
records
o Cost models and insights on key model inputs and outputs

WorkEverywhere / AirBNB of Workplace Experiences, that enables the human-centric distributed work of the future.

• What is unique about your venture and why would someone want to work with you? How will your company provide a good experience for the VIP Fellow?

For leaders (CEOs, Heads of Peoples, Workspaces, Remote, Employee Experience and DEI) of companies scaling their business and attracting talent, WorkEverywhere are B2B SaaS subscriptions (Joie + OfficeX) that enables them to both:
1. elevate employee experience with (a) Joie: accessible, inclusive and inspirational third workplaces* and (b) OfficeX: attractive flexible office hubs tailored for company culture, people goals and strategic milestones, and;
2. support middle managers with the ability to toggle these subscriptions to drive recruitment, retention and engagement outcomes.

Mission. “To live in the world you can thrive within community everywhere & truly belong wherever you are.”
Vision. “The Future of Life is Human-Centric. The Future of Work is Talent-Centric. We enables Workplaces for this future.
Values. People First, Embody Belonging, Reinvent Great Experiences everyday, Build Community as an Entrepreneur
People First
The people are our focus.

Although we obsess about improving humanity - particularly the lives of both employees and leaders with our customers, our employees are the highest priority. Without employees, there’s no WorkEverywhere.
Everything we do, we do for people.

Embody (diversity, inclusion and) Belonging

We’re committed to realizing equitable and fair outcomes for every member of the global workforce starting with our employees.

Reinvent Great Experiences everyday.
Your difference is a superpower in experience.

You don't stand out by doing the same as the herd (no pun intended!)
Extraordinary experiences don't just miraculously happen, you design them to be so.
You work relentlessly to differentiate.
You work relentlessly to understand humans and how we transition them from one state to another.
Very often, what is unique, becomes same, because it is emulated. Unique experience lies in constant observation, thinking, innovation and creation.

Wan't to know how?
Start with the human. Every time.
That is where all experience should begin, with them, the human, your customer.

Build Community as an Entrepreneur #OneWorkEverywhere
Every interaction is an opportunity to build our reputation. We encourage decision making and make every decision, big or small, with care.
We strive to communicate clearly and execute on our promises as relationships of trust matter.

• What stage of venture implementation are you currently in? What is your next milestone and how will you achieve it? How can your fellow help make an impact?

Our progress so far:
1. Targeting the Joie launch in January – at least 90 days of delay. Product development is 95% complete with testing underway – 12/31 completion date. We will pilot in Brooklyn with 6-10 partners, then Boston and DC next probably in 2023.
2. Developed Joie workplace acquisition strategy based on “Community Engagement” and conducting outreach around New York now.
3. Completed partnership with MWBE Unite and Deel. We are active discussion with several other such partnerships
4. Our focus is targeting a few accelerators: Company Ventures & NYCEDC, and Visible Hands & Brooklyn Nets – with $500k of funding. Participated in the AI Summit Pitch competition and joined the NYC/EDC FamTech portfolio.
5. Hofstra MBA consulting researching universe of corporate benefits towards third workplaces and developing a go to market recommendation.

• What skills and attributes are you looking for in a VIP Fellow?

Chief of Staff Role. Project management, Creative Problem solver, Strategic Thinker. Exposure with Marketing Strategy, Product Positioning and Data analysis would be beneficial but not necessary. Ability to identify cultural trends and bring an understanding of human behaviour to their work.