What started as an innovative idea to develop a box that caters to both man and dog is now taking Leila McElroy 238 miles from the RELLIS Campus to the Buc Days Ideas Challenge on the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi main campus.
McElroy is enrolled in the A&M-Corpus Christi Bachelor of Business Administration program at the RELLIS Campus. It was in one of these classes that she, along with five other students, were asked to dream up a potential business venture that was not currently on the market and complete key foundational business tasks based around the idea. The result was “Ruff Adventure”, a personalized monthly subscription box that caters to the adventure seeking humans and the dogs that they love. Each month subscribers will receive personalized products that encourage pet owners to spend time interacting with their dogs outdoors.
“We found out that Americans spent around 75 billion dollars on their pets just in the last year, so we thought it could be a cool idea because there is an unlimited amount of items for outdoor and pet friendly products,” said McElroy. “Considering all the available subscription boxes and that most people consider their pets to be family it just made sense to combine that two for a product that encouraged people to adventure with their best friend.”
While the concept began as a classroom assignment for McElroy it has now become a valuable educational experience that is taking her to contest as one of only three teams to qualify for the final portion. In the past few weeks, McElroy has dedicated her spare time to preparing for the contest by developing actual financial figures and estimates for the potential start-up, as well as practicing her presentation.
“We had to submit the idea for class, but after doing all the work and finding out that we got accepted to the final three I knew it was a great opportunity for me,” said McElroy. “It would be really cool to take this idea even further because I see actual accounting skills being using in practice and it is kind of cool because it is something I am passionate about.”
Tomorrow night McElroy will go head-to-head with two other teams on the Corpus Christi Campus.
Original members of the team include: Leila McElroy, Raine Spafford, Alison Collins, Samantha Johnson, Luis-Antonio-Rodriguez and Ulises Mendez.
For more information about the Buc Days Ideas Challenge visit the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi newsroom.