Four senior students worked together in the fall 2015 semester to develop a business plan for Altimeter, a student-led business group that proposed a distribution plan to lease the Ethos app technology to sister schools and other businesses.
Seniors Austin McRay, Kyle Wood, Anastasia Bubenshchivoka and Innocent Nkubito presented their business proposal on Friday to Oklahoma Christian University officials. During their presentation, the four seniors asked if the university would develop and support the leasing of the app technology.
According to Entrepreneur in Residence Russell McGuire, the very strong response from the decision-makers was “yes.”
What started as a way for Oklahoma Christian students to track their spiritual discipline requirements transformed into an idea to use the app for sporting events, chapel requirements and church activities in other institutions.
“If you think about what the Ethos software does, it gives you credit for being in the right place at the right time,” McGuire said. “The software currently runs on one meter – the spiritual development meter. We envisioned an app that would run on three – spiritual development, community service and sporting events.”
According to McGuire, Oklahoma Christian and other private Christian institutions can use all three meters. Schools like the University of Central Oklahoma and the University of Oklahoma can use the community service tracker and fan tracker. McGuire said private high schools like Oklahoma Christian Academy would also be able to use the software for their spiritual and service requirements.
“There are 120 members of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, and 30-50 percent of those schools have some sort of spiritual discipline requirement,” McGuire said. “If we only have 50 customers, this business won’t survive, but there are lots of churches and lots of high schools. We see a much larger market.”
McRay, marketing and sales coordinator for Altimeter, pitched the app to churches in the area including Henderson Hills Baptist Church, Crossings and Frontline. According to McGuire, two of these churches are anticipating the release of the technology to implement the technology in their congregations.
“This gives church members an opportunity to see their faith and their involvement physically, and it gives the church a way to keep up with their members, see who is falling off and provide a tool to reach out to those members,” McGuire said. “We think there is a larger market than just schools like us.”
According to McRay, Christian universities, Christian high schools and local churches are all connected well with each other. McRay and McGuire said that in primarily promoting to Christian universities, they would naturally pick up some churches and high schools.
McRay, Wood, Bubenshchivoka and Nkubito serve as the founders of Altimeter, and have the opportunity to work for free, and eventually would be paid, following their graduation from Oklahoma Christian.
According to McGuire, the profit made from this project could be invested in future planning, pocketed by the founders and provide additional income to Oklahoma Christian.
“Because the university developed the original Ethos app software and has to license this software, there is a royalty the university would receive,” McGuire said. “If this works out the way we anticipate, the university could receive $100,000 by the end of year five of business.”
Now that the team has received support from the university, it can move along with its four-part plan in promoting their business.
“Next we have to assemble the team, layout the legal entity and land our first customer – Abilene Christian University, who we have had good discussions with and they are very interested,” McGuire said.
The four seniors who have led this project have done all of the work for Altimeter thus far, according to McGuire. From now on, a team of professionals will have to be assembled to carry on the work of this business.
“Summer Lashley has expressed interest in managing this project,” McGuire said. “Part of the request with this project was that Summer and any other employees who want to get on board with this project could still work full-time for Oklahoma Christian while also working full-time for Altimeter.”
McGuire said that other Oklahoma Christian students have expressed interest in investing time and energy in Altimeter. These underclassmen will carry on the work that McRay, Wood, Bubenshchivoka and Nkubito started.
“Through the computer-science faculty, we have identified a small number of freshmen and sophomore students who are interested and would be good fits for our project,” McGuire said. “Those students who have showed interest in Altimeter would work for equity that they would receive in full after graduation.”
Until the business can stand on its own, Oklahoma Christian will own a portion of Altimeter and will house the start-up in office space. Oklahoma Christian will also provide Altimeter with legal representation and a marketing team to begin.
For the first year and a half of business, Altimeter’s offices will be located on Oklahoma Christian’s campus. Eventually Altimeter will move off campus, but McGuire anticipates that it will remain in the Edmond area.
If successful, Altimeter will provide full-time post-graduation positions. According to McGuire, McRay is excited to be one of the first salespersons for this project following his graduation in the spring.
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