Umma

Umma — “Mom” in Korean — is an umbrella sharing service as well as an advertising platform. We are the convenient solution for those who are caught unprepared by the weather, and the physical solution for companies who wish to increase their marketing presence.

​

Origin Story 🌱 :

In the Spring of 2020, my friend Matthew came over to my house to brainstorm some ideas to work on. It rained that night and he forgot to bring his umbrella... It only made sense for an umbrella-sharing platform to be the focus of our discussion.

​

We took this idea to The Hatchery entrepreneurship course at WashU and proceeded to develop a business plan and pitch deck. I also used what I learned in my rapid prototyping CS course the semester before to build a minimum viable product that uses QR codes, automatic messaging, and a simple real-time database to track the rental of umbrellas (see video on the left).

​

We bought 16 umbrellas and distributed them across the campus as part of our test run. The next day? I woke up to a text from the campus police. It turned out we did not have permission to be putting umbrellas and posters in front of school buildings. 

​

After weeks of meeting school officials and pitching to the student entrepreneurial program (StEP) board, we were accepted under StEP and were allowed to run our pilot.

​

Then COVID hit. Every student was sent home, and our idea of an umbrella-sharing platform is not exactly the best idea in the time of a pandemic...

​

Nevertheless, I had a ton of fun and learned a lot from this experience.