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 Blueprint Stats
Hunter Hawley, a recent alumnus from Cloverport, Kentucky, majoring in entrepreneurship in the Kelley School of Business, founded Blueprint Stats. Its client base is young athletes who want to improve their skills and college scouts looking for the best prospects.
“In general, there is a communication crisis in the youth sports space,” Hawley said. “Youth athletes want to be recognized for their skills, but scouts have to sift through unreliable player profiles to source talented athletes for their college programs.”
Blueprint Stats tags videos of youth athletic competitions and calculates advanced statistics on team and individual performances from the tags.
“Our athlete clients receive in-depth insight into their performance as well as a trustworthy, third-party source of statistics to use in their own recruiting efforts,” Hawley said. “Our scout customers receive a reliable stream of data on players they are interested in bringing into their programs.”
Blueprint Stats’ present and future
Blueprint Stats was the 2019 winner of the Elevate Ventures Nexus Pre-Seed competition and secured another bridge round of investment from Elevate Ventures’ Community Ideation Fund. It has developed a client base, including state-champion high school basketball teams.
Hawley said Blueprint Stats has remained focused on its efforts through the pandemic and will increase its statistician workforce when it becomes safer to return to sports.
“We will need to find a pool of people who are detail-oriented and love the game of basketball, enough to be paid for watching it,” Hawley said. “We will recruit online, sharing the opportunity on our Twitter and LinkedIn pages.”
Praise for the Shoebox
“I’ve tried to make this semester more about what I can give to the Shoebox than what I can get from it,” Hawley said. “As a young student entering the center, I was helped by a lot of older students who had experienced a few more things than I had, and I want to be that person for others. It’s that community aspect that makes the Shoebox so special.”
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.
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