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We’re celebrating Indiana University student innovators and entrepreneurs who are clients of the Shoebox, the university’s student-startup incubator. Located in the Shoemaker Innovation Center in Luddy Hall on the Bloomington campus, the Shoebox provides 24/7 office space to help student entrepreneurs build, launch and sustain their businesses.

Meet Prolific Sports Lab

Nicholas Coppola, a senior from Rye, New York, majoring in entrepreneurship and management at the Kelley School of Business, founded Prolific Sports Lab. Its client base is athletes who want high-quality protective gear.

“Prolific Sports Lab uses the highest-quality materials across multiple industries and an athlete-centered approach to keep athletes safe and on the field, playing the game they love,” Coppola said.

The company’s signature product is the NXT Foot Guard, designed to protect the top of the wearer’s feet.

“Athletes in all sports are constantly being stepped on or experiencing some other force to the top of their foot, which puts them at risk for injury,” Coppola said. “The NXT Foot Guard is currently targeted at football players who experience impacts to their feet such as being in pile-ups, but it is applicable to any athlete participating in a cleated sport like lacrosse, rugby, soccer or field hockey.”

Coppola said the product uses exclusive technology and revolutionary design to protect athletes’ feet.

“We have access to exclusive foam, the same material used in many U.S. military helmets,” he said. “The foam is soft, lightweight and flexible but on impact hardens to dissipate energy seven times better than the industry-standard foam. This, coupled with our patent-pending design, ensures that the athlete receives maximum protection with no interference.”

Prolific Sports Lab client testimonial

Preston Greto, an offensive lineman on the Cornell University football team, is one of the early users of the NXT Foot Guard.

“The NXT Foot Guard gives me the peace of mind and protection I need while playing football,” Greto said. “It is not noticeable and looks great on my cleats. I could not be happier with it.”

Prolific Sports Lab’s present and future

Prolific Sports Lab launched the NXT Foot Guard in August 2020 after working on it for more than four years.

“We have generated revenue through both merchandise sales and NXT Foot Guard preorders,” Coppola said. “We have also had the opportunity to send products out to both collegiate and NFL athletes, which we are very proud of as well.”

Coppola said Prolific Sports Lab successfully dedicated 2020 to proving its concept and building brand awareness.

“Our next step is looking into potentially raising capital to fuel our sales strategy for next football season,” he said. “We are also looking to potentially partner with athletes as well to get our brand adopted at the highest level.”

Praise for the Shoebox

“Prolific Sports Lab has greatly benefited from being a client at the Shoebox,” Coppola said. “The Shoebox community has given me the knowledge and guidance to find resources on campus to get my business off the ground. Among the best resources is the IP Clinic in the IU Maurer School of Law, which has helped me with intellectual property and other legal questions.”

Student startups can apply for 24/7 access to the Shoebox’s office space, which is located in the Shoemaker Innovation Center, Luddy Hall 2150. The Shoebox also collaborates with the Hoosier Hatchery pre-incubator at the Kelley School of Business, as well as Bloomington’s Dimension Mill startup accelerator. To apply for coworking space, write to luddysic@indiana.edu.

We’re celebrating Indiana University student innovators and entrepreneurs who are clients of the Shoebox, the university’s student-startup incubator. Located in the Shoemaker Innovation Center in Luddy Hall on the Bloomington campus, the Shoebox provides 24/7 office space to help student entrepreneurs build, launch and sustain their businesses.

Meet ShuffleMe

Britain Taylor is founder and CEO of ShuffleMe, a digital platform. Taylor is a Ph.D. student in intelligent systems engineering from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

ShuffleMe’s prospective clients are young adult social media users interested in self-managing their mood and increasing their emotional well-being.

“There is a lack of tools to provide data so these young adults can reflect on what has contributed to changes in their well-being,” Taylor said. “This problem impacts their mental health, which can lead to stress, anxiety, depression and suicidal ideations.”

ShuffleMe provides clients with an automatic mood tracker that estimates their happiness, sadness and other related emotions while they engage on social media.

“It’s difficult for people to track their mood throughout the day, which leads to the inability to manage emotional states. ShuffleMe does this automatically,” Taylor said. “Our software detects people’s emotions using artificial intelligence and machine-learning algorithms. The clients receive individual analytics that provide hidden patterns of behavior and a happiness score that reflects their overall mood.”

ShuffleMe’s present and future

Taylor and her colleagues have created an MVP, or minimally viable product, fully coded version of ShuffleMe, which won business pitch competitions and secured funding. They already have a waiting list for the closed beta version of the app. Taylor and her colleagues have conducted more than 60 customer-discovery interviews, and ShuffleMe has gained traction by participating in five pre-accelerators, including Firestarter, Elevate Origins Q3 and B-Start.

“We want to continue raising capital, refining our MVP and building a viable product,” Taylor said. “We have applied for accelerator programs to establish our business model and prepare to launch. We hope to seal partnerships and continue to gain traction as we generate revenue.”

Praise for the Shoebox

“We have been a client at the Shoebox going on two years now, and we’ve benefited from the community,” Taylor said. “Speakers provide us with a great deal of resources on how to execute getting our product to market and funding opportunities to work on our startups. It’s encouraging to be around like-minded entrepreneurs and innovators who share a common passion to bring a product to market that will make a positive impact in our nation.”

Student startups can apply for 24/7 access to the Shoebox’s office space, which is located in the Shoemaker Innovation Center, Luddy Hall 2150. The Shoebox also collaborates with the Hoosier Hatchery pre-incubator at the Kelley School of Business as well as Bloomington’s Dimension Mill startup accelerator. To apply for coworking space, write to luddysic@indiana.edu.

We’re celebrating Indiana University student innovators and entrepreneurs who are clients of the Shoebox, the university’s student-startup incubator. Located in the Shoemaker Innovation Center in Luddy Hall on the Bloomington campus, the Shoebox provides 24/7 office space to help student entrepreneurs build, launch and sustain their businesses.

Meet Let’s Meditate

Sagar Vasnani, a master’s student in the human-computer interaction program from Mumbai, India, founded Let’s Meditate. Its client base seeks resources centered on relaxation and meditation.

“Some people find it difficult to focus and relax, and some struggle with falling asleep,” Vasnani said. “Let’s Meditate helps them with their challenges and with maintaining balance in their lives.”

Let’s Meditate is a free meditation app for Android phones. It is being funded by users through optional donations.

“Let’s Meditate features a diverse set of audio meditations where a voice takes the listener on a meditative journey,” Vasnani said. “It’s like having a monk in your pocket.

“Because there are no signups or advertisements, and therefore no distractions, it is the most straightforward attempt at meditation among meditation apps. This helps to make meditation fast and easy for users. Users also like that the app is completely free, which makes it accessible for everyone.”

Let’s Meditate’s present and future

The app has been downloaded 1.7 million times, and more than 20,000 meditators use it daily. It is the highest-rated and top-ranked free meditation app, and Google Play ranked it the No. 1 meditation app at the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The app has been featured in Economic Times, one of India’s leading national newspapers and in Healthline’s ‘Best Meditation Apps of 2020’ list,” Vasnani said. “I’ve also partnered with Samsung to build a companion app for its Bixby marketplace.”

Vasnani said Let’s Meditate is looking to grow its userbase by branching out to more platforms like Apple’s iOS and the Kai OS in the near future.

“In order to reinforce the brand equity, I am looking to further improve the user experience of the app,” Vasnani said. “I also hope to create campaigns for more word-of-mouth marketing to reach the next million users quicker.”

Praise for the Shoebox

“The Shoebox has been useful for my venture in several ways,” Vasnani said. “It is a space that allows me to conduct brainstorming sessions with seasoned entrepreneurs, and individual meetings with law firms and development companies. It stresses accountability through weekly standup meetings and monthly check-ins, while offering positive reinforcement through an active community of entrepreneurs who are vested in each other’s success.

“The Shoebox has also made it extremely easy for me to find helpful connections; I was looking to get help with my company valuation and within just a couple of hours I was connected to a Kelley business student that was three connections away!”

Student startups can apply for 24/7 access to the Shoebox’s office space, which is located in the Shoemaker Innovation Center, Luddy Hall 2150. The Shoebox also collaborates with the Hoosier Hatchery pre-incubator at the Kelley School of Business, as well as Bloomington’s Dimension Mill startup accelerator. To apply for coworking space, write to luddysic@indiana.edu.

We’re celebrating Indiana University student innovators and entrepreneurs who are clients of the Shoebox, the university’s student-startup incubator. Located in the Shoemaker Innovation Center in Luddy Hall on the Bloomington campus, the Shoebox provides 24/7 office space to help student entrepreneurs build, launch and sustain their businesses.

Meet Ghost Life

Ashley J. Brooks is the founder of Ghost Life, and Paula Madetzke is the network specialist. Brooks is a third-year graduate student majoring in high-energy physics, while Madetzke is a first-year graduate student in intelligent systems engineering.

Ghost Life’s prospective clients are people who want to use their smartphones with enhanced privacy. A lack of privacy can make users vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation at the hands of those who collect and sell user data. The harm of exploitative data collection can range from manipulating online store prices based on previous shopping history to having the user’s location history being unknowingly shared with law enforcement without a warrant.

“Our product will be an application that includes basic and secure smartphone functionalities, and it is connected to a VPN to secure the user’s privacy and data,” Madetzke said. “This way, little if any user data is available to be collected by third parties.”

Ghost Life’s present and future

Brooks said she and Madetzke have learned about the business end of launching a startup by engaging with an Elevate Origins course for entrepreneurs in the ideation phase.

“We are very early on in our development,” Brooks said. “We have done a lot of research into the best ways to serve our clients’ privacy. We need to hone in on writing the app and conducting market research on the most important features to add.”

Praise for the Shoebox

“We benefit enormously from the Shoebox by having the connections and resources to identify and overcome the challenges of launching a startup,” Brooks said. “Neither Paula nor I come from a business background, and we were seeking guidance about how to begin. Through the Shoebox, we feel like we have a solid foundation of information to start a company.”

Student startups can apply for 24/7 access to the Shoebox’s office space, which is located in the Shoemaker Innovation Center, Luddy Hall 2150. The Shoebox also collaborates with the Hoosier Hatcher pre-incubator at the Kelley School of Business as well as Bloomington’s Dimension Mill startup accelerator. To apply for coworking space, write to luddysic@indiana.edu.