GetVirtual was formed in April 2020 to help local businesses impacted by Shelter-in-Place. Here is an update on their many accomplishments.

Local businesses make up an important part of our communities. They provide goods and services, jobs and many give back in so many ways. They also pride themselves on their often unique, local differentiation and exceptional customer experiences as they really do know their customers personally.  That’s why customers gravitate towards these one of a kind bookstores, bespoke clothing boutiques, yoga studios, restaurants, specialty shops, etc. These local businesses feel competitive pressure from Amazon and other big-box retailers. That pressure has accelerated and is exacerbated due to the effects COVID has had on the way customers must interact with local businesses and retailers. Local businesses traditionally lagged creating compelling online consumer experiences due to their local retail presence and their local customer base. They’ve focused on physical experience vs. virtual experience, evidenced by the overwhelming majority of local business websites that don’t do much, most are just an online brochure.  

Most local businesses have experienced a shuttering of their stores and a continued drop in revenue. Because of the COVID restrictions, and the closing of access to local businesses, customers have aggressively moved on-line looking for virtual experiences. Consumer behavior is radically changing and won’t snap-back to a pre-COVID era. Therein lies both a massive problem and massive opportunity. GetVirtual was created to solve this problem for local businesses. 

Here are our insights:

1. Today’s industrial-strength Web development and E-commerce tools are powerful, easy to use and require no programming;

2. College students are inherently digitally savvy, they have grown up on the Web and mobile computing is second nature to them and;

3. Colleges lack “hands-on” entrepreneurial programs, despite massive student demand.

With that back-drop, Toby Corey teamed up with UCSC entrepreneur teacher Nada Miljkovic and nine UCSC students to imagine a program that could scale worldwide to help local businesses get virtual and create an accredited block-buster entrepreneurial learning experience. Businesses get volunteer interns to help them extend their customer base online and expand  their business and Students earn college credit, learn entrepreneurship, while giving back to their communities. 

The pilot program at UCSC worked. We’ve created a course at UCSC where students earned college credit by working directly with local business owners to help them extend their businesses virtually. Next, we partnered with local economic development groups including the City of Santa Cruz Economic Development Group led by Bonnie Lipscomb and Santa County Business Council led by UCSC grad Robert Singleton to get the word out to businesses that needed our help.

The progress and results have exceeded expectations. GetVirtual’s founding class of nine UCSC students (Anagha Vijay, Arin Spanner, Ananya Misra, Yuliya Monastyrska, Stryker Buffington, Gideon Fox, Smeet Mehta, Aaron Huang, and Nikky Cherukuthota) “hit it out of the park.” Their unrelenting passion to serve their community, build a scalable platform from scratch, and unite a global student entrepreneurship movement for good is inspiring!

This summer, the original cohort has taken on more leadership roles growing and educating other students. Eight of the original student co-founders continue to work on the GetVirtual program meeting five times a week. Students and volunteers are invited to shadow on meetings, participate, and choose which projects they want to work on. They currently have over forty (40) volunteers that are working on the various client projects.

The first student cohort had 97 businesses apply.

They have completed 15 projects, donating roughly $45,000 worth of service to businesses that otherwise would have gone without. They currently have 20 active projects and 20 waiting for Client action.

GetVirtual has expanded to a summer course with 24 new students at UCSC, California State University Monterey created a summer course with 16 students. Both colleges are offering GetVirtual courses this fall. 

Created right here in Santa Cruz, CA, we are creating a worldwide college student entrepreneurial movement for good. We expect to have helped over 50+ Santa Cruz businesses get virtual by fall. Monterey Bay is now accepting business sign-ups and we are expanding our college footprint in all directions and in discussions with Santa Clara University, San Jose State, Chapman, University of Michigan, Duke, University of Miami, George Washington University and many more.

We are excited to expand the program in Santa Cruz, our home base,  and now have more capacity. Local businesses interested in our volunteer services can sign-up at GetVirtual . 

The prize is the journey and we are truly limited only by vision. Thank you Santa Cruz for all your support and gratitude, we are humbled and honored to serve. Team GetVirtual

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