At OpenBB we have a strong commitment to Academia. This is why we focus on partnering with universities around the world. These institutions have provided valuable insight to our engineering, marketing, and strategy departments.
OpenBB recently finished a partnership with the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. Having graduated there in May 2022, I was excited to see how I could work with my alma matter. Having been a part of the 3/2 MBA Program, I knew of a project that allowed us to work with students to get high value insight.
OpenBB decided to assign the students the task of understanding how we can be successful in Academia. We chose this because our team had unique access to other students, professors, and faculty. Leveraging these connections could lead to high-value insight for OpenBB.
There were several components to this project including understanding what the competition offered for investment platforms, learning what made a platform competitive to various users, and determining which markets were most underserved. The students did research by conducting a survey, and interviewing people throughout the university.
The students understood that OpenBB needs a unique value proposition to succeed on campus. They informed us extensively on how we can compete with other terminals providing financial services, to beat the market. This includes being more accessible, and having more training for using our terminal.
Working with the team of IU students helped us to better understand our customers. We hope to use this information in the future to continue to grow. We are very thankful for the help of our Indiana University students: Jack Hegwood, Lilly Li, Jack Hinkle, Owen Smith.