When Nick Peterson (BS ’20) and Nathan Eggenberger (BA ’19) founded Sundream Studio about 18 months ago, the pair focused on web development for external clients. Nick a developer and Nathan a designer started building internal tools to reduce the time it took to get websites up and running. They realized that for the majority of people, building a website is hard, not to mention time consuming and often expensive. Recognizing a lack of all-in-one hosting and website building platforms, Sundream released a self-service tool to allow people to create their own site without the need of a web developer.
While Nick and Nathan were working with Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic on their incorporation documents for Sundream, they met the Business and Entrepreneurship Clinic team. Seeing an opportunity to expand the scope of their current projects, Sundream applied for services with the B&E Clinic. After a short intake meeting, the groups agreed the clinic would work on marketing and financial projects for Sundream Studio. Nick says the work was, “honestly amazing;” after the initial meeting and brief check in, the team ran with the projects and “worked seamlessly, almost as an extension of our team; executing on their own and showing strong initiative to deliver the projects.” The B&E Clinic crafted custom marketing strategies along with a full go-to market proposal and market penetration strategy, compiled a competitive analysis spreadsheet including positioning and value proposition that was used to better understand whitespace in the industry, and provided a five-year financial model with detailed, yet flexible inputs.
For Sundream, these projects wouldn’t have been possible without the B&E Clinic according to Nick. The nature of the projects was outside of the founder’s wheelhouse and as a new business, their time and resources are stretched thin. “I absolutely would recommend startups work with the Business and Entrepreneurship Clinic hands down, it was magical,” said Nick. “The insights and deliverables were really great and the whole process was really cool.”
Sundream increases accessibility for users with any level of technology experience, “if you can fill out a form, you can build a website with Sundream,” says Nick. With Sundream, users can have their website up and running within minutes at a fraction of the cost of other solutions in the market. Their simple approach to building a website allows Sundream to pass the cost savings on to their clients; for five dollars per month they provide webhosting, a SSL certificate, five email accounts, and a WordPress site. The simplicity of the templates provides interesting creative constraints which helps focus on the clarity of the content.
“Wisconsin’s entrepreneurial environment is really strong and highly collaborative. The partnerships with the City of Madison, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the business community offer very powerful resources for new businesses. The regional resources are really high value, and we’re super grateful.” The B&E clinic services are available to entrepreneurs based in Wisconsin and are provided at no cost; for more information, visit the B&E Clinic webpage.
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