Plugging students into STEM
A bull runner and a man named “Fish.”
They’re the brains behind ToroFish Inc., a name that combines Robert Grebe’s love of toro (bull) running in Spain with the first syllable of Russ FisherIves’ last name.
Nothing to do with STEM education, but names can be misleading.
The partners have created a new online platform for middleand high-school students to engage in STEM-related activities in and out of school, and to participate in state and national competitions for prizes. And now, after participating in the ABQid business accelerator program, Torofish is no longer swimming
upstream, but rather racing like a bull to market.
“We’re about to launch our first statewide competition targeting diabetes and sponsored by a major corporation,” Grebe said. “We’ll have students develop at least the outline of an app to engage other kids in learning how to avoid contracting diabetes.”
Such competitions are part of the company’s business model, which the partners refocused and refined through ABQid.
The ToroFish website allows students to record their STEM-related activities and earn points that can be turned into gift cards. Through competitions, they can also win prizes. And all the while, they build up an online profile that demonstrates their interests, activities and endeavors to be used later to attract interest from prospective employers and college recruiters.
But while Grebe and Fisher-Ives originally thought students themselves would be their target customers, through ABQid they learned that businesses and colleges looking for STEM-inclined prospects are actually their best bet.
“At the beginning, we identified parents, teachers and students as our customers but, after interviewing them and many others through ABQid, we realized they’re ‘users’ not customers,” Fisher-Ives said. “It helped us to define universities and recruiters as our primary target market.”
In essence, Torofish is now becoming a recruitment tool, Grebe said.
“College recruitment is an approximately $7 billion annual market and we didn’t even have colleges as part of our original business plan,” Grebe said. “We pivoted through ABQid, and it allowed us to work and focus on that.”