 This week's conversation is sponsored by Trinity Market at Trinity University. So we're coming to you from the Sixth Floor Studios of Nowcast SA in Central Library. And I'm here today with Bria Woods. And Bria has a really interesting startup that came out of a really interesting course at Trinity University, right? Yes. So tell me about where your startup came from for starters. Yes. My senior year, and I just graduated from Trinity a couple of months ago. So my senior year, I was looking for an extra one hour course to take, and I wanted to check out some of the entrepreneurship classes that Trinity has. And so in the course that I was taking, we formed groups, people who had ideas before the course had an opportunity to pitch their ideas to the class. And then based on, we all voted on those ideas and then formed groups around those ideas. And so the group that I joined was called the Reformers. And so we were working on developing a social non-profit to raise awareness on college campuses about rape and sexual assault. That's one of the really important things to me is that you're also doing some high-tech app stuff, but with a social justice focus, right? Right. And so the point is what is the problem you're trying to solve? So the why we do what we do is just trying to create a sense of accountability and responsibility on college campuses. Because college students make lots of friends during their time in college, and they are going to have some of the best memories of their life. But we don't want safety to be left up to chance. We don't want a situation where someone's safety was compromised to end up leading to a bad memory. So that is truly the heart behind why we do what we do. And from that class we had pivoted so many times until we eventually ended up developing an app called Glow. Glow. Yes. GLO. GLO. All caps. Yes. And what is that app going to do? Yes. So the app is designed to help college students party safer and smarter by helping them get home safely. And so by using GPS tracking and push notifications, we are automating the process of checking on your friends during a night out. Checking on your friends. So you as a friend can check on another one of your friends and say, is everything going okay? Is that what the deal is? Yes. And so the way it works is when you open up the app, you put together a group of friends that you're going out with. You send them an invite saying, hey, you want to look out for me tonight. And then you put in the address of where you're going and the time that you want everyone to check on each other. So kind of like a curfew. So it's saying I want everyone to check on each other and be home by 2 a.m. And then you put in your home base so that could be your dorm room, your apartment, your best friend's place, wherever you consider a safe space to be at the end of the night. And then you go out. You have a good time. And then five minutes before you curfew, if you're not within 20 feet of your home base, the app will send a notification to you saying, hey, are you okay? And then if you don't respond at all in that five minute window, either because you're not aware or you're too intoxicated or what have you, then it will send a notification to everyone in your group saying, hey, this person hasn't responded. Do you want to check on them? Wow. Yeah. Wow. And that iteration, where you're at right now, you said a minute ago, and this is a start-up term that I'm familiar with because nowcast is a start-up, but you said pivot, pivot, pivot. So there have been many times along the way since you first went into this class in January or February of 2015. There have been many times along the way that you've said, adapt, adapt, pivot, pivot. And you've gotten to this point, which is a really clear sense of what the why is. And what problem it is you're trying to solve. And what need people have for this. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. We've done a lot of market research just to find out what is this a problem, number one. And if so, how are people already working around it? And what do they wish existed to help them make that process easier and simpler? Let's go back to this for a second. You said you were in the class in the entrepreneurship class in the spring of 2015. Then you went from there to get some more help and some more mentorship in terms of your start-up, right? Yes. So you won... Yes. Yeah. So it was in the class fall of 2015 and spring of 2016. And then part of the class, we had an opportunity to apply for the Stomberg seed prize competition. The what? The Stomberg seed prize competition. And so 12 teams applied. It was a pitch competition. And we competed in April, this past April. And there were five finalists. And we were one of the five finalists. And we won a $5,000 check, an additional $4,000 for our team specifically for web development. And it acts an entrance into a 10-week accelerator at Trinity through the Trinity Entrepreneurship Department and free membership at Geekdom for the first six months. So the support was coming from a whole bunch of different areas, right? So you have support from free membership at Geekdom. And that's not just a free place to hang your hat. That's also a community, right? Exactly. Exactly. So we were able to go to things like mentor madness. And mentorship was also a huge part of the accelerator. And Dr. Luis Martinez served as our mentor as well. He's the director of the Trinity Entrepreneurship Department at Trinity. And we had weekly meetings, workshops, roundtables, just to really accelerate the growth of all of our startups. Wow, terrific, terrific stuff. And then also money for web development. And that's one of those things I know. We spend a ton of resources on our website because that's basically how we deliver our service. And web development is going to be how you deliver your service, right? Well, yes. Well, the app is going to be a native app. However, we are trying to drive a lot of traffic to our website so people can find out more about what this app does, why they should use it, and try to begin building our community of users around this app. Okay. And so the website is under development right now. Yes. It's coming very, very soon. Yes. Very, very soon. Very, very soon. I saw the final design of it yesterday, and I think they are finishing it as we speak. And I said it takes about a day or two to become live. So hopefully by this weekend it will be up. So what is the website? Glowapp.net. Glowapp.net. Yes. G-L-O-A-P-P.net. Yes. It's the website. Okay. Yes. Okay. And the app at the same time you've had people working on the application itself? Yes. I competed in a wireframe competition in July in Austin, and I won. And so there was a team of seven coders who wrote code for the app. They did like a 24-hour hackathon for Glow. And I approached the team leader after the conference to ask if he would be interested in continuing to build out the app to the full version 1.0, and he said yes. And so my app developer, he's in Austin, and he is also working as we speak on putting the finishing touches. And we're going to be ready for beta to go into beta testing next week. Okay. Beta testing next week. Yes. I know. Okay. And so people who are interested in the beta testing also can go to the website to find out more about the beta testing. Yes. And tell me, what's beta testing going to involve? Yes. So after you sign up, we have an email capture on our website. So after you sign up, if you're interested in beta testing, it's going to involve just simply downloading the app and just using it. And finding out if there are any bugs, if you click on this page, just a crash, hopefully not. But really, we just need feedback. And that's what it involves. It involves a dedicated group of people who understand that this isn't a flawless app yet, but through beta testing, we can make it be even better. So I have kind of a saying that only my friends tell me that it's broken. So when somebody comes to the website and they find something that's broken and it now casts a say, only my friends actually take the time to say, hey, this is broken. Everybody else moves on. So what you need is a bunch of friends who are going to try to break it and see how it breaks or see how it doesn't respond in the way that they want it. They think it should respond and to give you that feedback, which is really almost as valuable as a venture capitalist investment, right? Very true. The feedback on the user experience, and sometimes people refer to that in technology as the UI, right? Right, yeah. And TechSpeak. TechSpeak, the user experience. And how can this be made friendlier? Right. And how can it respond? And oops, it broke. Right. Thankfully, my friends are very supportive. And they said, we will definitely test it out for you. And one of my friends, she's actually going to be going on a trip. And so she and her best friend are going to use it on their trip to see how it works. Next week. Yeah, yeah. That's so cool. That's really, really terrific. I guess one of the things that I know your professor, but it's also something that I think is still not widely known that there is this entrepreneurship program at Trinity University. I mean, here's the school and lurking underneath it is this really interesting thing that for you was not something you were expecting at all. Right, right. And we are trying to build more awareness on campus. We have an entrepreneurship hall in the dorms so that people can get immersed in that experience throughout their entire educational experience. So not just in the classroom, but outside of the classroom as well. And so during our involvement fair next week, we're also going to be promoting the entrepreneurship program. Just trying to show people like this could be you. You know, there's no reason why college students everywhere shouldn't try starting a business if they're interested. Because if it flops, you still have a place to live. You still have food to eat. You still can get your degree and always have a backup plan. So I think, you know, if entrepreneurship is something that college students are even slightly interested in, they should definitely go for it. Because college is a safe space to do that. That's absolutely terrific. That's absolutely terrific. So, I mean, your major was something completely different? Yes. Your major was? I was a communication major and a film studies minor. I've always been interested in media production. And so I always say that I am an accidental entrepreneur. But, you know, I think I really, I think there's a way I can kind of blend the two, you know, in many ways. I'm still using my strengths in media production in theory and incorporating that into my role and with glow. Because at the end of the day, when you're trying to sell things and you're doing marketing and sales, a lot of that is things that I learned in communication. So very interdisciplinary. That's really, really terrific. Well, I thank you very much for taking the time to visit with us today and tell me the website one more time. Yes, glowapp.net. Okay. Yes. Thanks a bunch. Thank you.