Spin In® offered two learning experiences for James Massaquoi and Suryansh Gupta, first as part of a student development team in part one of the story and now in part two as Entrepreneurs in Spin In’s first student-led start-up to enter the program. This article is a part of the series “Where are they now?” This article is part two following James Massaquoi’s and Sury Gupta’s story as student entrepreneurs leading a student development team in launching their startup. Every Spin In experience brings with it unexpected outcomes.
Sury Gupta built his entrepreneurial experience similar to James Massaquoi at UD through Horn Entrepreneurship and the many opportunities through participation in activities held at the Venture Development Center, One being VentureOn. VentureOn is designed for students actively pursuing the launch and growth of a business. Gupta graduated in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree and in 2022 with a master’s degree, both in computer engineering.
As Students, they built entrepreneurial experience.
Gupta and James Massaquoi were already co-founders of the first idea, in 2018, Intellecta, aimed at helping interesting startups scale and grow. In early 2019 they learned of a new problem and developed a solution that seemed to resonate with everyone they presented it to. That led to co-founding of a new startup, 360VR Technology, which uses virtual reality technology to create digital 3-D models of public and government buildings for use by first responders in emergency situations like fires or active shooters.
360VR’s early startup journey earned a history of winning nationwide competitions. Awards included many nationally recognized competitions, such as U.C. Davis Big Bang! in the engineering sector in 2019, Tulane Business Model Competition in 2020, and being an alternate for the SXSW event in Texas canceled due to the pandemic in 2020. At home, 360VR was the lead finalist in the University of Delaware’s premier startup funding competition, the 2019 Hen Hatch. Gupta also attended MassChallenge in 2020 by invitation, where 360VR participated in the safety and security sector.
In 2018 Massaquoi also participated, as a student, In OEIP’s Spin In® program. The work explored market feasibility with the Spin In student development team for a better posture device concept. During this time, Massaquoi learned how beneficial the Spin In program is and how, as a young entrepreneur, the program could help move 360VR forward. In early 2020, two early start-up entrepreneurs, Massaquoi and Gupta, designed the scope of the 360VR Spin In a project with OEIP aimed at launching 360VR into one or several market opportunities.
Massaquoi and Gupta take on Spin In® as entrepreneurs.
Spin In is a unique UD offering for students to advance the region's workforce and economic development efforts. Spin In enlists the help of entrepreneurs or research faculty who have an early innovation, a real-world challenge related to the entrepreneur’s company, or a researcher’s innovation. Coupled with OEIP, plans are assembled, job descriptions are created, mentors are enlisted, and an interdisciplinary student product development team is brought together.
For 360VR, the student development team included three students familiar with the startup, which contributed to a quick self-assembly of the team and the ability to start the project’s objectives quickly. Their previous knowledge became an essential key to what they accomplished in little time since no one predicted the pandemic four months later would impact businesses as it did. The student team comprised Justin Thompson ‘20, English & economics served as the chief revenue officer; Adam Zelinsky ‘20, entrepreneurship & technology innovation, and marketing, provided business development and client management; and Kyle O’Donnell ‘20, mechanical engineering was the team’s product manager.
The project scope
360VR proved adaptable to many markets, and finding one with a substantial revenue stream was one goal. 360VR had chased areas in estate sales, virtual tours, and first responders. Ultimately concentrating on large-capacity buildings but then customizing for each was not economically feasible. To better reach economies of scale, the team’s mentor, Louis DiNetta, Manager, Tech Business Development, SBDC, suggested exploring the enterprise market for 360VR as a significant revenue possibility.
The development team divided responsibilities for several options already being pursued, being an opportunity in Delaware's prison system for safety and monitoring and with schools for fires and active shooter scenarios.
A third became finding contacts in the enterprise market. The 360VR team targeted four to five best enterprise-level accounts. It happened that they agreed with a Chicago-based company to sell 360VR’s software as a centerpiece of a software bundle for hotels and restaurant groups. It looked like they had the first hotel installation in Hawaii. Massaquoi recalled the point of excitement when they planned to be there to see it through. “We were about to have contracts with everybody, and then, everything shut down, and suddenly no budget for building security and safety due to the global pandemic. Sadly, Hawaii came off the table, too. The team tried to maneuver around the effects of the pandemic. Still, in a situation such as that one, especially in hotels and restaurants, we found no alternative.” said Massaquoi.
Gupta's view of the 360VR Spin In experience was centered on computer engineering and the software program he was responsible for. “For Spin In, we had an agile approach using a patch management system for the software updates.”
One pivotal moment Gupta recalled was testing a new feature. The program recognized that a lightbulb was turned on. They worked with the Delaware prison while integrating 360VR software into the prison’s existing camera network. He recalls an exciting moment, “We were all there to see it.”
After Spin In
Massaquoi graduated in 2020, just after the Spin In product development team finished. He looked back at the skills he learned as a leading entrepreneur in Spin In. He found the management role and recruiting the right people is a skill he uses in his present role at Osage Venture Partners.
Massaquoi was glad for the experience in enterprise sales. It was a path many startups don't find an entry to. Massaquoi said, “We did find an entry, a difficult market to penetrate, but the pandemic got in the way. Now that I am in venture capital, I see how enterprise-level companies have the biggest growth impact on the companies we now serve at Osage.”
At Osage, Massaquoi has been a part of six deals and at least ten million dollars in investments. The portfolio is a selection of drone companies for supply chain, eCommerce, influencer marketing for gaining human capital management, and a healthcare deal. How he applies the additional outcomes learned through the Spin In team experience is the team itself, “What I look for is how the teams, the companies, and the people get along. I keep learning. So next time, when I give it a go, hopefully, I'll be more than ready next time.”
Gupta is thankful for the years he spent on 360VR and still supports the technology with interested companies. For now, its future is something he is still pondering. As Gupta worked towards his master’s degree, he also revisited his interest in healthcare. Gupta equates the additional outcomes spun out of the Spin In team as universal and sees parallels in his position now, even though they're entirely different industries.
Gupta now works at a young company, Innovative Precision Health (IPH), and still deals with multiple silos of data to examine and evaluate, just like 360VR. At IPH, siloed data comes from neurologists and collects quantitative data from patients' MRIs, cognitive tests, gait tests, sleep monitoring, and remote patient monitoring. Gupta aggregates all that data to improve clinical decision-making and machine learning to help determine disease progression and treatment recommendations. There is another effort with pharmaceutical companies for decentralized clinical trials and performative drug metrics.
Gupta adds, “On the technical side, it's interesting I still build software that benefits people.” Now, helping patient populations that can measure a better quality of life has met Gupta’s interest in healthcare.
Gupta felt Spin In was excellent for students and entrepreneurs acting on many fronts, like meeting as a group to keep the project organized. Gupta was also glad for the managerial experience, “Understanding people's talents and how to accomplish goals best was excellent training for where I am now and working with several interns.”
Both co-founders felt what Massaquoi explained, “I had a first-hand look at being a real-world entrepreneur and not labeled as a student startup; we were testing our punch weight to survive outside of academia. We learned what was needed, which was a success.”
And, If there is a 360, implying “full circle,” left in Gupta’s story, he hopes to bring early ideas to a future Spin In team after IPH relocates next to OEIP in the FinTech Innovation Hub on STAR campus.
Spin In is a unique UD offering funded by NSF EPSCoR and the U.S. Economic Development Administration to advance workforce development in the state and region.
Office of Economic Innovation & Partnerships (OEIP)
Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships (OEIP) is an economic development portal that connects outside entities to university knowledge-based assets to stimulate a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship among UD students, faculty, and partners to contribute to the state and region’s social and economic development. OEIP acts as a focal point for resources and advisory services to support the cultivation of early-stage companies and industry partnerships. With a focus on discovery, OEIP assists in the development and commercialization of intellectual property assets into marketable opportunities and/or new businesses. OEIP offers the Spin In® program that stimulates innovation and entrepreneurship and provides workforce development opportunities for qualified students. OEIP’s units include the University’s Technology Transfer Office (TTO), Delaware Small Business Development Center (DSBDC), and APEX Accelerator Delaware (formally PTAC). These units perform as an integrated ecosystem to meet the technology and business needs of the University, the state, and the region.