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Picture this: You spend a few days away from home at an Airbnb, hotel or Vrbo. After a couple of restful nights, you realize how much you like \u2026 the mattress. In fact, you wish you had one just like it.<\/p>\n
What kind of mattress is it? Where could you buy a mattress like this?<\/p>\n
Okay, maybe it\u2019s not a mattress. Maybe it\u2019s a coffee maker or a scented candle or any number of other items you encounter. Nick Koenen would say that you have just experienced retail in real life.<\/p>\n
Koenen is a 2015 business graduate of the\u00a0University of Wisconsin-Parkside. His idea is to help people quickly find answers to their questions. To help Koenen answer his questions about turning the idea into success, he turned to Dr. Abey Kuruvilla, his former UW-Parkside business professor. Besides the student-instructor connection, both Koenen and Kuruvilla are Airbnb hosts.<\/p>\n
As is often the case with a startup, the challenge is moving from the initial concept to a practical and profitable business operation. Kuruvilla and Koenen met a number of times to talk about road blocks and opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the key things that came out of those meetings,\u201d Kuruvilla said, \u201cwas how to make the idea more local. Someone traveling to Racine or Kenosha from Chicago may not be looking for a national-brand mattress but they may be interested in a local product or something that reflects the town. Now Nick is working on a local as well as national focus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without giving away too many secrets, guests at an Airbnb, Vrbo or hotel could find information about various products \u2014 like that really comfortable mattress.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially, the best way for the business model to work is that visitors place an order and by the time they return home, the product has been delivered,\u201d Kuruvilla said.<\/p>\n
The meetings led to Kuruvilla suggesting that his MBA operations class would be a good platform for further analysis. Kuruvilla and faculty colleagues in the UW-Parkside College of Business, Economics, and Computing have an impressive track record of engaging students in hundreds of community projects. Students and faculty help solve real-world business challenges in a variety of industries such as fulfillment, health care, manufacturing and others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe students in the MBA class have international backgrounds, and many are working professionals,\u201d Kuruvilla said. \u201cThey may not have experience in hospitality, but they are bringing experience from multiple industries. That\u2019s great benchmarking \u2014 you come up with recommendations from other sectors that you may have never thought about in hospitality.\u201d<\/p>\n
The class looked at Koenen\u2019s idea from a variety of perspectives. Students contacted Airbnb hosts, hotels, guests, national suppliers, and local suppliers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were looking at the processes,\u201d Kuruvilla said, \u201crefining and helping Nick look deeply into the processes in key areas. As a single guy, there is only so much you can do, but here you really have a team of people thinking for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
While UW-Parkside offers the MBA both online and on-campus, Kuruvilla says the on-campus format works best for this type of project.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese community projects work so much better in face-to-face classes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The traditional classroom also provided the opportunity for Koenen to attend and better understand the process of review-and-recommendation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe set aside time during each class to discuss progress and have meetings with every group,\u201d Kuruvilla said, \u201cand Nick was very involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koenen had participated in community projects as a student at UW-Parkside.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing the other side of it was cool,\u201d Koenen said, \u201cand I was excited to see what the class would come up with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koenen was also able to share exciting news that he received a $300,000 venture capital investment during the semester.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone (in the class) was just over the moon,\u201d Kuruvilla said. \u201cThe investment meant that a lot of the student recommendations could likely be applied.\u201d<\/p>\n
By itself, this is a great story \u2014 former student connects with his professor to discuss business startup; professor involves his MBA operations class; students review the concept and develop recommendations; the former student \u2014 turned entrepreneur \u2014 receives financial backing so he can implement recommendations from the class; and the company continues to grow.<\/p>\n
Drop the mic! Good night! But the story doesn\u2019t end there.<\/p>\n
Kuruvilla\u2019s track record of working with local, regional and national organizations is impressive with more than 400 community projects. So, too, is his history of developing valuable student internships. During a study abroad trip to Italy that included a tour of Case New Holland (CNH) in Lecce, Kuruvilla suggested an internship for U.S. students from UW-Parkside in Italy. After months of behind-the-scenes work to arrange proper travel and work credentials, two students who had been interns at CNH in Racine traveled back to Italy for what they described as a life-changing experience.<\/p>\n
It seems a bit obvious that after the MBA class presented Koenen with recommendations, the next step would be to keep the educational-experience ball rolling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it would be really valuable if a student could get an internship from this,\u201d Kuruvilla said.<\/p>\n
Koenen agreed and hired Mitul Jain, an international student who began looking more closely at project management and processes. Jain is also exploring ways to increase visibility for\u00a0\u201cHoustr\u201d\u00a0\u2014 the name of Koenen\u2019s new company \u2014 including a social media presence he developed that has already generated thousands of followers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe name, \u2018Houstr\u2019 \u2014 we\u2019re kind of the bridge between your house, and the short-term rental you\u2019re staying at,\u201d Koenen said.<\/p>\n
Kuruvilla sees Houstr and many other community projects as a bridge to student success.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn a general level, the MBA class learns so much,\u201d he said. \u201cOn a more rigorous level, 20 students are involved in a community project and they now understand how an American startup begins. And now one student is working on a paid internship \u2026 a former student hiring one of our current students. I couldn\u2019t ask for better outcomes for my class.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext semester there might be other areas we want to look at, so this will be an ongoing partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who knows where the story might end \u2026<\/p>\n
Written by John Mielke<\/p>\n