UM Graduates’ DaisNotes App Offers New Login Tool

OXFORD, Miss. – Three University of Mississippi alumni have developed an application that boldly aims to solve a very common problem: the feeling of being disconnected.

DaisNotes LLC – co-founded by Kyle Herbert, of Metairie, Louisiana, and Nicholas Neilson-Slabach, of Fort Worth, Texas – targets students and faculty for grade sharing and social networking for their classes. They are working with Thomas Lee, a 2021 UM graduate, on the project.

Neilson-Slabach said he came up with the idea thinking there must be better ways for people in the classroom to connect online and help each other learn.

The app works similarly to UM’s BlackBoard e-learning platform, but is more suited to a mobile experience and allows for more instant communications, much like social networking apps. The goal is to help students more easily forge those lasting friendships that often arise during college years.

“When I thought about it, it was because I didn’t really have a way to talk to the people who were in the classes I was in, and I knew there could be better ways to study, to make friends and get to know people. around you, ”said Neilson-Slabach. “A lot of people would use GroupMe or WhatsApp to talk and class chat and make jokes. I realized it was difficult and needed more steps.

“We thought (that) everyone is connected through their classes. We knew we could start there.

Recently, the Mississippi Seed Fund Board of Directors awarded a $ 10,000 proof of concept award to DaisNotes to support the development of the app. The Mississippi Seed Fund is administered by Innovate Mississippi, a nonprofit organization that fosters innovation and technology-based economic development.

The founders of DaisNotes connected with Innovate Mississippi in June 2020, where they received business plan advice, research assistance, connections with the network of mentors and, now, the Mississippi Seed Fund award. .

One of the founders, Herbert, said it has been very helpful so far.

“They gave us a ton of exposure – we were a flagship company, and we got their mentorship throughout this process,” Herbert said in a press release from Innovate Mississippi. “They put us in touch with important people at the University of Southern Mississippi to contact us, and the same in the State of Mississippi. It’s great to have these kinds of resources.

The DaisNotes team is using their money from the Mississippi Seed Fund to develop an Android version, as it is only available on iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system.

This is not the first set of funds the app has received. For winning the Gillespie business plan competition in 2020, the group secured office space at Insight Park, the university’s business incubator, and an additional $ 10,000 in seed money.

Initial funding was provided in two installments at milestones agreed to by the company and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, or CIE, at School of Business Administration. The money funded beta testing of the app, which kicked off in fall 2020.

DaisNotes has approximately 1,200 users at 20 different universities.

In addition to the Gillespie Prize, the application, which was still only a concept, was recognized in 2019 during the Business Model Competition Regional Qualifier organized by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a division of the Ole Miss business school. . The idea was developed while Herbert and Neilson-Slabach, a former student of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College and CEO of DaisNotes, studied at UM.

Lee, a Gulfport Honors College alumnus who graduated in Arabic and Political Science in May, designs the app. He thinks he has enormous potential.

“We’ve been really trying to grow taller since January,” Lee said. “We’re in about 20 different schools right now and we’ve actually seen a network effect take place. I think this speaks to the need for this. ”

As the network grows and more users log on, the conversations within DaisNotes will grow, Lee said. The team is also creating a ‘Teacher Portal’ to allow teachers to view reports on their students’ use of the app and send one-way messages to classes, for homework or homework. other announcements.

The app allows students to anonymously raise concerns about academic fraud or report other issues to a professor, which should improve academic honesty, the developers said.

“We’ve had some feedback from professors and it’s that they like how quickly they can connect,” Lee said. “There is also a report function for unauthorized test banks or other issues.”

It also provides a platform for users to talk about more than academics, Neilson-Slabach said.

“What we are seeing is the grand vision of students being able to chat and share notes, and we have features to allow students to enter chat rooms and talk about their interests,” Neilson said. Slabach. “A nightly chat room is popular on some weekend days, for example.

“It’s just about connecting students in the academic and social aspects of college. “

Clay Dibrell, co-director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and professor of management, said he liked to see the project take shape, from idea to full business model to become a reality.

“At each stage, you could follow their development and, to their credit, they relied on the offers offered by the UM Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, such as our entrepreneurs in residence, our mentors and taking our risk accelerator course, ”says Dibrell. “All of these programs are open to students from across campus. “

The team did a great job leveraging the resources available on campus to help them succeed, such as the incubation space in the Insight Park innovation hub, working with the Office of Technology Management and the Transaction Law Clinic, he said.

“Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem to grow businesses like DaisNotes to launch, and we have these resources on the UM campus, in Oxford and across the state,” he said. said Dibrell. “We are delighted for them and for the future ventures launched by our student and faculty entrepreneurs.”