Student works on developing app to help overcome daily scheduling woes

January 14, 2019
Liam Rose, '19, turned a challenge he faces into an opportunity he hopes to pursue after graduation

“Organizational and scheduling issues are often difficult for me,” he shared. “We have so much to manage—schoolwork, clubs, extracurricular responsibilities, personal relationships. I developed an idea based on something I needed for myself.”

HORUS, Liam’s app which he hopes will launch in the spring, is a time management tool designed to encourage users to input all activities in their schedule to view how time is allocated in any given period of time.

The acronym HORUS categorizes activities in an individual’s schedule, including health, occupation, responsibility, unique, and social.

“If you want to work on something, maybe it’s spending more time with family, taking care of tasks and errands more quickly, or coordinating group activities, HORUS enables you to see how you allocate time and make changes based on wants and needs to set your ideal schedule,” Liam said.

The app serves as a reminder for appointments, but also archives daily schedules, and allows users to share appointments with others. “I want HORUS to be available across all mobile and web platforms so it’s the easiest calendar platform for user engagement,” Liam said.

Liam and his co-founder, Thomas Lux, met through a mutual friend after he had been searching for a technical expert to help bring his idea to life. Thomas, a graduate of Vanderbilt University and board member of the institution’s Entrepreneurship Club, has experience as a software developer.

Liam hopes to have a beta version of the app available by early 2019, and is working closely with Mike Page, an Executive in Residence at the Robins School, as a mentor.

“Mike has been an awesome resource,” Liam shared. “He has been through the entire process of entrepreneurial foundation to exit multiple times, and is very open to talking through his experience.”

Of their time spent together, Mike shares, “For many students, starting a business or pursuing an idea while in school provides a chance to pursue or explore an entrepreneurial career with a relatively low opportunity cost. I was immediately impressed with Liam's focus on the process of starting a business. He recognized early on that following a disciplined approach can make the difference between success and failure of start-up.”

Liam has capitalized on the sources of knowledge he has found both in and out of the classroom. He largely credits Dr. Jonathan Whitaker, associate professor of management, of encouraging him to pursue entrepreneurship. “Dr. Whitaker encouraged my concentration in Entrepreneurship Management. The coursework drives results and action, and require detailed ideas and plans,” he said, which helped him refine his business venture ideation.

He has also relied on fellow entrepreneurs as a resource when he took part in the inaugural Spiders Entrepreneurship and Innovation Road Trip in May 2018. The program took students to Silicon Valley and San Francisco to learn firsthand about the different industries and job opportunities through meetings with alumni at startup ventures and related industries and guided tours of company headquarters such as GV (Google Ventures), Dropbox, and Airbnb.

“There’s a camaraderie in starting your own company, and being able to talk to entrepreneurs on a personal level unlocked the human side of being a founder,” Liam said of his experience. “There was candor in people talking about their early experiences. It was inspirational and extraordinary. I did not expect to get such insight into the thought processes behind running these companies.”

As Liam looks toward graduation in May, he plans to work toward the fundraising of HORUS’ seed round and begin working fulltime on the venture in Richmond with Thomas. In the meantime, he looks forward to the potential of beta testing the app on campus to gain student feedback.