The four Iowa State University students recently took a software project they created in their computer science class, developed their own business from it and attracted the attention of one of the state's most well-known entrepreneurs, John Pappajohn.
The computer application they developed allows multiple computer programmers to build, compile and test lines of code on the same program at the same time.
"Any changes made by any developer are seen by everyone in real time," Swanson said.
Several programmers can work on the same piece of code then from "not just cubicles away, but over the ocean," Wong added, which could speed up the efficiency of programming.
"This program applies to any type of company that does a lot of software development," Wong said. "This could really help those companies that outsourced some code or programming to maybe say India or the (United Kingdom)."
While the idea of collaborative programming is not new to the industry, the students said their project is original in its connection to a "programmer's toolbox" that helps programmers build, compile and test the codes they are writing. Other collaborative editing programs have only helped in writing, Swanson said.
"Ours is really geared toward programmers where the earlier editions were not necessarily," Swanson said.
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When asked which came first - the idea for a business or the computer application - the response was, without hesitation, the idea for a business.
The students knew they wanted to start their own business, but they just didn't know with what.
"Once we had this program ready and heard some encouragement from a professor, we thought this would be a great thing to go with," Swanson said.
The first real taste of the business world came during a face-to-face meeting with Pappajohn, president of Equity Dynamics, Inc. and the founder of the five John Pappajohn Entrepreneur Centers in Iowa.
The meeting came in the form of a competition at the annual Collegiate Entrepreneurs Iowa Conference held last weekend in Ames.
Against 11 other projects from entrepreneurs at ISU, the University of Northern Iowa, the University of Iowa, Drake University and North Iowa Area Community College, the students had just about 10 minutes to sell themselves and their project to Pappajohn and his colleagues.
Although the meeting didn't go as smoothly as the students wished or even expected, they came away with one of the top three prizes of $5,000.
The Future
The students said they are not quite ready to begin marketing the project yet, but are eager to get to that stage.
During the next few months, the students plan to talk with potential buyers about what they want to see most in the product.
"It works, but there are a lot of features we would like to add, there are a lot of companies we want to go to and find out what they want," Wong said.
Swanson said the students are also looking for further investors to build on the cash Pappajohn started them out with last week.
"It's a good starting point," Wong said. "It's definitely a good starting point."
The students hope to have a beta version of the application complete by the end of the summer.
William Dillon can be reached at 232-2161, Ext. 361, or William.Dillon@amestrib.com.
