On November 17, 2021, seven finalists will compete for $22,500 in awards in the Fall 2021 Skandalaris Venture Competition. In anticipation of the SVC finals, we are publishing a Q&A series with the finalists. Today’s featured team is Octavo.
Octavo is a blockchain-based platform for sending and receiving academic credential. Octavo is a platform for sending verifiable transcripts and diplomas at a fraction of the price. The current process of sending and receiving academic credentials is slow and expensive. A student must request a third-party service to deliver the records to their employer. They then pay anywhere from $5-$15 per transcript and wait several days for the process to be completed. By utilizing the blockchain, our service delivers unforgeable copies of academic records instantly. Normally, interaction with the blockchain is tedious and inaccessible, but we streamline this process. Once uploaded, students can easily send their academic records to potential employers where they can verify their legitimacy.
Number of Employees: 2
The Mozi Team includes: Founders Zach Meyer (LA ’22) and Ian Welsh (LA ’22)
Total Funding (as of November 2021): $0
What problem are you solving?
It all began after we had to send our transcripts to our employers for our summer internships. After three years of hard work, we were excited to finally sign our offer letters, and the last step was sending in our transcripts. We were shocked how slow and expensive it was to essentially just send a pdf file. After talking to friends we realized we were not the only ones dealing with this issue. We decided to build a platform that was faster, more secure, and less expensive than the competition.
What do the next 3-6 months look like for you?
During the next 3-6 months our biggest focus will be speaking with universities and trying to get them to use our platform. We will continue testing and improving our MVP. We will also continue having conversations with registrars to ensure our service is solving the pain points in their current process.
What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned since starting your venture?
It is important to have thick skin. Criticism is not always constructive, but you still need to take what you can from everyone’s comments. Not everyone will like or understand your idea, but you have to remind yourself of your initial vision and keep pushing forward.
What do you love about being an entrepreneur?
Not having a boss…it’s amazing. The constant freedom to build your idea is one of the most enjoyable pastimes. You will constantly find yourself so engrossed in your venture that the work becomes fun.
What words of advice do you have for those starting a business?
I would say that it is vital to start with a good team. Starting a company is hard and doing it alone makes things a lot harder. Finding people who complement your skillset will be invaluable down the line. Chances are you won’t be an expert in everything, so try and find someone that is strong where you are not.
What activities, student groups, professors, or classes had the biggest impact on you during your time at WashU?
Ian: Intro to film had the biggest impact on me. When watching older films they don’t have the special effects or the all-star ensemble cast that films today do, but when broken down to a molecular level, you understand the basic core mechanics that make them special. Even though we don’t have a billion-dollar valuation or endless resources, we focus on the core functionality of our service that makes it special. Zach- Web dev, I learned to code.
Website: https://octavo.ai/