THERE'S NO QUICK SHORTCUT TO SUCCESS: ZORPADS TAKES OFF
It all started with a smell. Taylor Wiegele and Sierra Smith (both MBA 2017) met with a group of classmates for their FIELD III course, trying to come up with a problem to fix. The course, now an elective, tasks first-year students with creating a product to start their own venture. When a group member – don’t worry, they won’t reveal who – took off her shoes, they knew they had found their problem to solve.
"She knew [the smell] was bad, but then she started listing out all the reasons current products on the market don't work. They either A) don’t eliminate the odor, B) bunch up in her shoes, or C) make her shoes tighter due to the inserts," Smith explains. "She came up with the problem for us."
Wiegele, who has a background in air and water filtration thanks to his engineering work at SpaceX, used his knowledge to mock up a product that relied on materials traditionally used for absorption in the aerospace and healthcare fields. The insert is a small adhesive square that can fit into any shoe but has more odor-absorbing surface area than a tennis court. Originally called "N'Odor," the team pivoted to Zorpads because it was a play on aerospace terminology and the product itself – plus, knowing a good deal when they saw one, the web domain was $12 a year.
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