NoFores

Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business

Industry: Golf/VR

Founding Student Name(s): Nadia Susanto and Michael Lim

Brief Description of Solution: Leveraging virtual reality to elevate the way golfers study courses before tournament play

What led you to launch this venture? As a student athlete on the Carnegie Mellon women’s golf team, I know how difficult it is to play a new golf course blind and without deep knowledge of it. By having a technology that can help competitive golfers master a course before even playing it, it makes every course their home course advantage.

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? My biggest accomplishment is cold emailing a PGA Tour caddy turned PGA yardage book creator and then to have him give me terrain and slope data to use for our proof of concept.

How has your business-related major helped you further this startup venture? Business has given me the problem-solving skills and quantitative reasoning skills to help me further this venture. Being a small team of just two right now in our early stages, it’s hard sometimes to figure out what’s next, but business has taught me also to be patient regarding these decisions.

Which business class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? Introduction to Entrepreneurship has been valuable because I got into the weeds of what it takes to become an entrepreneur. Our first project was the profit game where we were given an initial investment of $60, and we had to turn that into more profits in order to beat the other teams and win. The biggest lesson I took away from that is how we need to think outside of the box and not just do the basic types of selling.

What business professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? William Kaigler was my Introduction to Entrepreneurship professor, and he helped me become excited and actually take action on the ideas I had. He was not only a professor, but an accomplished entrepreneur that helped mentor me along the way as I go through the ups and downs of working a startup.

What is your long-term goal with your startup? I want this to disrupt the way competitive golfers study courses before competition. Being a golfer myself, I see this technology being used by collegiate teams and professionals to elevate the way they play golf.

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