University of Utah MBA student Tim Cooley wanted to find a way to make exercise more fun. He started with a simple question: What if walking a pet —even a virtual pet —could be made into a game? With help from the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute at the David Eccles School of Business, he and a team of other students joined forces to do just that. They created StepPets, a game where players compete with pets they earn by walking and increasing their fitness goals each day. Earlier this month, Cooley, along with Topher Nadauld, Binoy Mohanty — who both were Entertainment Arts and Engineering graduate students at the U — and Eleora Nelson, a local Salt Lake City artist, watched as their creation hit the ITunes store. After raising more than $10,000 through the U’s Get Seeded and Bench-to-Bedside programs, they were given $20,000 from Zions Bank to take the company to the next level. This month, StepPets, through its parent company Random Breakfast, launched in the Apple App Store. The students are available for interviews about their product and their journey to becoming young business owners.
Tim Cooley |Phone:619-301-9180 | Email: tim@randombreakfast.com