HOGAN & GOLUB: MEDISKED
Tom Hogan and Doug Golub founded MediSked LLC while pursuing their graduate degrees from the Saunders College of Business. Hogan came up with the idea for MediSked while working in Niagara Falls at a home healthcare agency. He saw how time consuming the industry's paper filing system was and envisioned a web-based solution. He and Golub have been working on the company since 2003.
They developed an online system that allows home healthcare agencies to manage payroll, billing, document tracking, planning, incident reports and scheduling. The company has found a warm reception; currently MediSked has 38 clients throughout New York State and in 2007 alone they’ve been featured in the Insider and the Rochester Business Journal.
About the potential to create his own job, Golub remarks, “Every life and work experience helps contribute to your ability to see new possibilities (and) make the smartest decisions all the time. Make sure to have a strong network of resources, both for advice and also to help you carry out the tasks that make it possible to meet your goals.”
Clearly, their experience at RIT has helped them to make the right decisions when growing MediSked. The company currently resides in RIT’s Venture Creations Incubator at 125 Tech Park Drive.
CHAHINE, ORTH & McCOOK: NVFX
Chafic Chahine, Dan Orth and Bob McCook founded NVFX in order to promote financial literacy among the 18-25 year old demographic. They have focused on generating articles and providing a forum for blog posts in order to provide relevant content. In addition, they offer budget planning, expense tracking and portfolio management utilities. They primarily make their money from advertising targeting the demographic they serve.
When they began the business, the students were optimistic about their chances of success but overlooked a lot of details. “Working in the Student Business Development Lab has helped to identify a lot of the small things that we were forgetting to think about,” says Chahine.
Also, they were better able to focus on their mission in the professional setting that came along with getting an office at the Development Lab. “We were twice as productive in the Lab as we were in an on-campus environment,” says McCook. He adds, “One of the major advantages of the incubator is the synergy that is created by collaborating with students from other colleges.” For example, NVFX worked with a programmer out of the Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences to help them develop their web-based utilities.
As they look to continue their careers at RIT and work on more start-up projects, the trio values their experience at the Student Business Development Lab. “I thought we'd walk away from it after the quarter we received co-op credit for our project, not going back to the incubator or Dr. DeMartino as a resource, but it's been completely the opposite,” says Chahine. McCook agrees, adding, “The incubator has been a great opportunity for me to utilize business and technical skills, and as an MIS major, that ability will become crucial in the future. The benefits of that definitely live on past this one new venture experience.”