Our guests today are both 2nd year MBA students at Darden who founded their start-up at the beginning of their MBA program. We’ll learn more in a minute, but a little background first. Maximilian Huc graduated from Princeton in 2013 with a BA in sociology. Outside of class, he started his first start-up called My Grade Zone Points, and has basically been a serial entrepreneur. Sam Boochever graduated from Cornell in 2011 with a bachelors in applied economics and management. He worked for Allscripts for several years and then started his own company in March 2015. In Oct. 2015, shortly after starting at Darden, Max and Sam co-founded 1Degree. Welcome, Max and Sam!

What is 1Degree App? [1:40]

It allows people to connect one-on-one with celebrities, athletes, etc – we call them “influencers” – that influence their lives. This doesn’t exist in the market today, where most celebrity-fan interaction is one-sided (such as Instagram, etc). We’re trying to take it a step further and allow people to connect with their favorite influencer.

The way it works is that people follow the influencer. The influencer offers the option of bidding on a two-minute, face-to-face video chat. People bid on the conversation. The celebrities can either keep the money or donate it to their favorite charity. Afterward, the celeb has the option to follow up with the auction winner after the chat.

What’s the backstory? [3:55]

We were paired as roommates when we got to Darden. We ran across the story about an individual who paid the rapper Meek Mill $2000 to take a selfie with him. We thought it was amazing how much people were willing to go out of their way to access the people who influence their lives, and the idea was born.

How’s it going? Are the influencers volunteering/participating? [5:00]

It’s going well! We’ve had influencers reach out to us even before the app was in the app store. We’re getting interest from various industries – entrepreneurship, fashion, sports. And it’s international.

Can you give an example of someone who’s participated? [6:40]

Robby Hayes, the runner up on the Bachelorette last year, offered a conversation. Our Darden classmates were bidding and were really excited – it was cool to see people who’d watched the show together every week having fun with it.

Are people doing it for fun, connections, star worship, advice… ? [7:45]

All the above! It cuts across demographics and industries.

What about the motivations of the influencers? Are they mainly looking to build their social media presence, raise money for charity, reach out to fans, or are there other reasons? [8:25]

Again, all of the above. It depends on their industry. Some people use it to humanize the fan relationship.

We’re hosting a pitch event at SXSW where people can use the platform to pitch, so it really depends on the influencer.

Did you know you wanted to start a business when you arrived at Darden? [10:30]

Sam: I applied to business school wanting to do healthcare consulting, but I realized I wanted to work for myself, and when I met Max and we developed the idea for this company, it took off.