Jon Fischer
Student entrepreneur
Class of 2011
Juggles Champlain classwork with his GPS-based speed tracking business.
Fast Learner
The one-of-a-kind Bring Your Own Business (BYOBiz) program at Champlain College offers student entrepreneurs a unique opportunity to grow businesses they have started (or launch companies they are thinking of starting) while simultaneously earning undergraduate bachelor degrees from a distinguished and accredited college.
Champlain student Jon Fischer is doing just that. Fischer, who will graduate in May of 2011, brainstormed an idea when he was a sophomore in high school as a project for a science fair: use GPS technology to address the issues of teen speeding and teen driving fatalities. Fischer developed a prototype of a superior-performing GPS-based device to monitor driving behavior and entered it in the Massachusetts State Science Fair. He won $100 for his high school.
During the summer between his sophomore and junior year of high school, Fischer entered a business plan competition, then developed and, with the help of his parents, wrote the business proposal for launching a company based on his invention. With the winnings, he applied for a patent; registered his trademark and trade name, Speed Demon Inc.; registered domain names (speedemon.org and livefastdriveslow.com); and put up his first marketing website. In his junior year, Fischer entered another business plan competition, and won the Grand Prize of $7,500 and hired his first employee, a part time software engineer.
In senior year of high school, Fischer picked his school of choice: Champlain College. "They had the BYOBiz program for entrepreneurs and some of the best skiing in the east," Fisher writes of Champlain College in and article he wrote for Future CEO Stars magazine-published by the Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education in Columbus, Ohio.
Fischer, a Business Major, is also an avid skier, and thanks to the BYOBiz program and Champlain's close proximity to great skiing, Fischer has moved ahead with his education, his business and his passion for high speed downhill. During the two years Fischer has been studying at Champlain his business work has been focused on completing the commercialization of the technology and finishing beta testing of the latest version of the devise. At the end of his sophomore year at Champlain Jon put the The Speed Demon Teen Driving Monitor on the marketplace
When he begins his junior year this coming fall semester, Fischer's business will focus on sorting out strategic options for marketing the Teen Driving Monitor; he's researching including licensing the technology, seeking a joint venture with a major insurance company; and exploring other options beyond the young driver market.
"We get all kinds of businesses being run by students in BYOBiz-from web retailers to high tech ventures like Jon's," says Robert Bloch, Director of the BYOBiz Program. "It's been fun working with Jon and watching both him and his business grow during these past two years." For college-bound entrepreneurs like Jon Fischer committed to their own big ideas, there is no better place to be than at Champlain College.
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