The idea struck in Budapest, Hungary. Over 5,000 miles from UF’s campus in Summer 2023, two students, Karl-William Nietert and Ethan Wolf, decided they didn’t want to wait for Spotify Wrapped to come out at the end of the year to see what their friends were streaming.
A growing number of UF students are proving that you don’t have to wait until graduation to launch a business. Balancing coursework with creative ambition, these “studentpreneurs” are building brands, chasing passion projects and redefining what it means to be a college hustler in 2025.
So, Nietert and Wolf did what any entrepreneurial, tune-obsessed college kid might do. They built their own social music discovery app, Siren.
“It started with just a way to see what people are listening to in real time and also show your stats in a 24/7 way, kind of like Spotify Wrapped all the time,” said Wolf, a 22-year-old UF sports management senior. “We ultimately think Siren will be kind of a lightning rod for music sharing and social connection.”
With no real technical experience between the two, they began designing and refining before bringing in 21-year-old UF computer science junior Jatin Verma to code the app.
After months of regular all-nighters, the trio gave themselves a harsh deadline of April 18, 2024, to complete the app, just in time for EDM artist Noizu’s concert at Vivid Music Hall, where they had a promotional booth set up.
But there were two problems. Spotify wasn’t giving them access to the web application processing interface, or API, which is a set of web services provided by Spotify that lets developers access the app’s music catalog and user-related data. And the app was hacked just seven hours before launch.
After going down an X, formerly Twitter, rabbit hole, Nietert was able to figure out the founder of Spotify, Daniel Ek, was Swedish, just like him. Nietert also discovered Ek’s email address from a 2011 post.
Nietert decided to send a cold email to the founder of the multi-billion-dollar company in Swedish, their shared language. To his surprise, Ek forwarded the email to one of Spotify’s head developers the next day. Within a couple days, the Siren team received approval for the Web API needed to acquire user listening data, a process that can typically take up to a year.
“I honestly feel like any successful startup, they have some wild story like that where they were just trying stuff and needed that break,” Wolf said. “We always talk about expanding the surface area to get lucky.”
The app was finally ready to launch on the day of the concert — but hours before, it was hit by hackers demanding Bitcoin. Verma was then able to password-protect everything and remove the hackers with two hours to spare before launch.
Verma said getting the first 100 users took up to three months. Now, it’s grown by 100 users just last week.
“I learned more about coding doing Siren than I've done in school,” Verma said.
In just one year, the app garnered over 500 users. According to 23-year-old UF master’s of international business student Nietert, this is because of the community aspect the app provides through an ad-free, cost-free model.
Nietert said the app wasn’t created to make money but was instead a passion project to alleviate their own problem. Despite the many hours put in, the rewarding feeling comes to Nietert, who religiously wears his Siren-branded hat, when he is approached by students who use his app.
“A lot of people have ideas, but ideas don't mean sh*t,” Nietert said. “You really have to start executing.”
While the Siren team was busy untangling code and dodging hackers, another UF student was threading her way through a different kind of startup challenge, one stitch at a time.
For 20-year-old UF business administration sophomore Hayden McPharlin, embroidery has served as an outlet for creative expression and extra income through her business, Beads and Butterflies.
It all started with a Christmas gift during her senior year of high school: a sewing machine.
After seeing bead embroidery trending on TikTok, she decided to make herself a custom shirt for UF football games featuring a small green gator. After many compliments and requests for custom pieces, she decided to launch Beads and Butterflies last June.
Now, she fulfills custom orders out of her college apartment bedroom.
“It's perfect while I'm at college, too, because college girls love just any kind of merch and everything like that,” McPharlin said. “I love to just come home and work on my designs.”
McPharlin said her minor in retail has helped her navigate the venture. As part of UF’s retail society, she credits its conference last year with insights on how to grow her business more, such as leaning into social media and reaching different audiences.
“It's really rewarding,” McPharlin said. “This past basketball championship game, just walking around and seeing girls that I know wearing something that I made, and I'm also wearing something that I made, really makes me feel good.”
Not everyone’s building apps or threading custom designs. Some “studentpreneurs” are making magic out of what already exists. Opening last December in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, In The Attic offers one-of-a-kind vintage men’s and women’s clothing from various locations around the world.
The duo behind it all are two childhood best friends and UF students, McKenna Chase and Katelyn Spohn.
McKenna Chase, a 20-year-old UF English junior, said she has always been a lover of vintage fashion, so the idea for the store came from a desire to promote high-quality vintage clothing in a world of fast fashion.
“The premise of the store is that you can find anything for anywhere that no one else will have,” she said. “So it's uniquely for you.”
The two chose their hometown for the flagship because they noticed a lack of curated vintage clothing in the area. However, mainly running the business from over 300 miles away at college has been a struggle.
The biggest challenges have been working around class times to handle problems as they arise and finding reliable staffing, Chase said. But the upsides have been growing closer with Spohn and having unlimited access to vintage clothing.
“I would say that I have a different style every single day,” she said. “Opening my vintage store has literally let me expand my style so much that I feel like I don't even have a box to put myself in.”
Originally planning to go to law school, Chase said opening In The Attic has made her realize the retail store is something she wants to pursue full time once she graduates. She and Spohn eventually want to franchise the store and open more locations, she said.
In The Attic has previously made its way to Gainesville and Orlando for a brief stop at local vintage markets. Even though they were miles away from their hometown, customers from Fort Lauderdale came to visit the pop-up, which Chase said was the coolest part.
Whether they’re cold-emailing billionaires, hand-stitching gators or hunting down the perfect vintage tee, these UF “studentpreneurs” are making one thing clear: when inspiration strikes, even from Budapest or TikTok, it pays to listen.
Contact Sabrina Castro at scastro@alligator.org. Follow her on X @sabs_wurld.
Sabrina Castro is a senior journalism student and Spring 2025 Avenue reporter. When she's not off chasing the latest trend story, you can find her scrolling TikTok or searching local thrift stores for vintage gems.
