The Ross School of Business likes to bill its classes as “action-based learning,” in which students can grapple with real-world business quandaries. And for Andrew Charnik and Jeffrey Richman, such was the case when they were asked to create their own business venture.
The result for the two Ross School of Business graduate students is “Relive” — a business plan that melds the atmosphere of live, small-scale concerts with the struggles of up-and-coming artists in an online community.
The idea afforded them the chance to compete for $25,000 to make the business a reality. Their team was chosen out of 160 teams as a semi-finalist in the New Venture Championship competition, which started yesterday and will continue through the weekend.
The competition — which is in its 17th year — is hosted by the University of Oregon’s Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship. It pits student entrepreneurs against one another for the chance to win prize money.
Charnik said the goal of their music industry-centered business is to create a more accessible online community of fans, lesser-known artists and venues with a website.
“[Relive] is a concept that records live performances, markets them and then distributes them for the benefit of small concert venues and emerging musicians,” he said. “In the long term, we want to develop an online community that really connects people with live performances. This would create a medium for artists and venues to have instant access to their fans and vice versa.”
Charnik said the two came up with the plan as part of one of their classes in the Business School.
“We, as a team, sculpted our ideas into a viable business for our class, New Venture Creation ES615,” he said. “My personal interests are in the music industry in general, so I was happy to help create something that would bring new value for emerging artists.”
Richman said after they came up with the initial plan for the business, they spent considerable time consulting with experts in various fields. Though they plan to run the business themselves, they have taken full advantage of the resources the University has to offer, Richman said.
“We’ve spent a lot of time talking to all sorts of people: professors, people in the music industry, those who operate venues and produce music,” he said. “We also have a music industry adviser with 30 years experience — we’re hoping that it all pays off.”
Richman said it could take a while for the business to get off the ground, but that making the competition is an important first step.
“The one thing we’re doing right now is going to these types of competitions to network a little with different investors and to hopefully win some money to start moving ahead in our planning,” Richman said excitedly. “We’re hoping to use (the prize money) to launch a beta version of our website, find financial partners and start to bring on additional staff.”
Following the competition, Charnik and Richman said they hope to work with students at the University interested in computer science or programming to get going with their business plan.