Jane Odum developed MyFixam through the inaugural Franklin CREATE! Summer Startup Academy 

Three months after Jane Odum earned just $9 from the first product she tried to sell, the University of Georgia computer science Ph.D. candidate stood on a Los Angeles stage to accept a $100,000 prize. 

Odum won third prize in the Google XPRIZE Build with Gemini Competition for MyFixam, a marketplace where people in Nigeria can find verified service providers and pay through a system that protects both parties. The international competition drew more than 1,400 projects and 26,000 participants. Odum was one of five finalists who presented Sept. 25 at the United Theater. 

The award capped a summer in which Odum learned how to turn her technical ability into a viable business. Through the inaugural Franklin CREATE! Summer Startup Academy in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, she tested one product, abandoned it when customers showed little interest, and built MyFixam around a problem she knew from her mother’s work as a tailor in Nigeria. 

“Students may arrive with the technical skills and a clear vision for what they want to build,” said Laura Williams, Franklin CREATE! program manager, “but developing a viable business requires them to determine who needs it, what problem it solves, and how people will use it.” 

Learning when to move on 

Odum entered the academy with Pincel, a tool she developed to help scientists create figures from their research. Her lab found it useful, but two months of development produced only $9 in sales. 

“It was useful, my lab still uses it, but nobody was going to pay for it,” Odum said. “Killing it was the hardest decision I made all summer.” 

Customer discovery had given her an answer, even if it was not the one she wanted. With about three weeks remaining in the summer program, she shifted to an idea rooted in her experience growing up in Nigeria. 

Customers there often hire plumbers, electricians, mechanics, tailors, and caterers through personal referrals. Arrangements may be made through WhatsApp, and payment usually comes by irreversible bank transfer. Customers risk sending money to someone they have never met. Service providers can receive fake transfer receipts and complete a job before realizing they were never paid. 

Odum initially thought the primary need was a marketplace that would help artisans reach more customers. She contacted dozens of vendors and received little interest. Then a baker with a large social media following explained that she already received more than 100 orders a day. Her problem was figuring out which customers had actually paid. 

That conversation changed MyFixam. 

“The problem you assume is rarely the problem people have, and the only way to find out is to test it cheaply before you build,” Odum said. “I now put the hypothesis into the outreach message itself and see whether the market responds, rather than building for two months and finding out afterward.” 

MyFixam combines a service marketplace with identity verification and an escrow system. The platform holds a customer’s payment until the work is complete, reducing the risk for both sides of a transaction. 

Odum built the iOS and Android apps, web app, payment system, identity-verification tools, and five AI systems used by the platform. MyFixam launched July 2 and now has more than 700 users. 

Building a company through Franklin CREATE! 

Odum entered Franklin CREATE! with strong technical skills. The academy asked her to apply another discipline: finding evidence that people would adopt and pay for what she built. 

“I have been building things since I taught myself to code on paper as a teenager in Nigeria,” Odum said. “But I had always built alone, without ever testing whether anyone actually wanted what I was making.” 

The Summer Startup Academy began with 13 student-founded teams, with 12 completing the program. Students spent four weeks working through Franklin CREATE! before joining UGA Entrepreneurship’s Summer Launch Program for another seven to eight weeks. They interviewed potential customers, worked with mentors, and practiced pitching their companies. 

Odum met weekly with her coach, Toyin Alli,  a senior lecturer in mathematics and founder of a digital education business. Alli helped her weigh the feedback she was receiving and turn it into quick tests and concrete changes. 

“My coach Toyin was consistently kind and gave feedback I could actually act on, which is rarer than it sounds,” Odum said. 

The direct questions Odum received during pitch sessions also helped prepare her for larger competitions. 

“The feedback was direct and specific, particularly on how I was explaining where our users actually came from and how I was handling competitors,” she said. “Being asked hard questions in a low-stakes room meant I could fix things before they mattered.” 

MyFixam placed second at UGA Entrepreneurship’s Demo Day before advancing to the Google XPRIZE final. The company is expanding into additional Nigerian cities and working toward international payments so Nigerians abroad can purchase services for family members at home. 

Odum also sees a longer-term opportunity for the people who find work through the platform. Each completed transaction can create a verified record of an artisan’s earnings and reliability, which could eventually help workers establish the financial histories needed to obtain credit. 

The summer helped clarify what Odum wants to do next. 

“It made me realize I want to build companies, not only do research,” she said. “This summer was the first time I put something in front of real people and let them tell me what was wrong with it, and that changed how I want to work for good.” 

Odum expects to earn her Ph.D. in December from UGA’s School of Computing and plans to work on MyFixam full time.