RookieOven Academy - Demo Day

For the past 5 weeks, RookieOven has watched three groups of incredibly talented, bright, and tech savvy individuals come together to create their own start-up business plan through RookieOven Academy. Our major purpose, as Michael put it, was to "further their abilities in digital and wanting to flex their entrepreneurial muscles" and I can tell you, they did not disappoint! RookieOven is happy to declare Demo Day as a big success.

It has been awhile since we blogged about our Academy, not out of any negative connotations, in fact it was the exact opposite. We became so enthralled with the academies progress, as well as working with our current clients, we genuinely devoted all our time to focusing on them rather than blogging. However, we’re back to tell you about the final week – Demo Day.

To Recap:

The goal for each group was to come up with product ideas and turn them into the foundations of a solid business. The weeks were as follows:

• Creative Thinking with Chris Sloey, cofounder of Add Jam
• Business Models with Rohan Gunatillake, founder of Mindfulness Everywhere
• Digital Design with Graeme McGowan, cofoudner of Jamhot
• Digital Marketing with Ashley Baxter, founder of Insurance by Jack
• How to Pitch - Cally Russell founder Mallzee
• Demo Day with our panel of experts and investors

As the Weeks Progressed:

The three groups brain-stormed some fantastic ideas:

• Visual To-Do – using your senses and visual representation to help you remember your to-do lists.
• Simple Animations – a high quality animation tool for the “every day Joe/Sally” to make their drawings come to life.
• Tourist Information – an app which filtered tourist attractions to your personal preference without all the internet chaos.

However, as many entrepreneurs know, your first idea might not be the same as the final, a lesson the students quickly picked up on. After a few weeks of playing around with ideas and business plans, the outcome for each was as follows:

• Elegance – We are all different, our smiles, our laughs, but specifically how we like to represent ourselves. Many find make up to be a third arm, an extension of how they express themselves but finding the right products can be daunting. This group created an app which allows the user to not only match their skin tone but also set preferences such as vegan, cruelty free, price, etc.
• ATMO – According to My Opinion (ATMO) is an app made for people who are awful at remember exact names but can remember details to the T. If you are someone who gives directions like this: “first you’re going to come to a huge tree, take a left, keep going till you see the burger joint, but if you see a graveyard you’ve gone too far”- this is an app for you. This app helps train your mind to remember your to-do’s by using visual aids and sounds.
• RC Products – Remote Control Smart Chair aim is to relinquish the back pain we all know too dear. Sitting at your desk for hours and hours can be extremely harmful to your lower back and have some terrible consequences. With the RC Smart Chair, you will be able to analyse your sitting habits to then customize settings to create the perfect and healthy work chair.

The Final Countdown:

Each team had to create a pitch to sell their product to the experts and investors, this can be a scary task however each group hit it out of the park.

The guys were gentlemen and it was ladies first pitching Elegance:

Next was ATMO group which unfortunately had a prior engagement but didn’t leave us hanging and created a film presentation with Michael stepping in to help pitch their idea:

Last but not least, RC Products with their Smart Chair:

Results:

Each pitch had a clear vision and very thought out business plans. The academies had fantastic confidence and really shinned as they proudly explained their products. We couldn’t be more proud of each group however Demo day was a competition.

Coming in first was Elegance with their beauty app:

Runner ups was RC Products and their Smart Chair:

And lastly, third place was ATOM and their visual to-do list.

But truthfully, as corny as it may sound, they were all winners! Though that is a wrap on the first ever RookieOven Academy, we look forward to the next set of creative, bright minds that will help shape the future of technology. Keep a look out for their work, these guys are definitely paving the way for our tech future.

Thank you:

Last but not least, this could not have happened without the help of Skills Development Scotland and Glasgow City Council. RookieOven would like to thank everyone involved. Programmes like this are here to help encourage younger generations and support their ideas. As artists and inventors, we survive with the help of those who believe in our work and ideas, without that we would not see some of the amazing technology we have today. These guys are truly the voice of the future and we are beaming with pride as we help them follow their dreams. Thank you again to all involved and we look forward to the next Academy. For now, we bid you all ado and leave you with our studio mascot, Indy, who embodies our feelings after so much hard work: