Evansville native Hadi Yousef developed the Borsa Earnings Calls app, an aggregator he envisions as “the Spotify for earnings calls.” With the app, potential investors, reporters, employees and analysts no longer need to search investor relations websites of public companies for upcoming earnings calls, which are used to learn more about the expectations a company has for the upcoming quarter. Instead, subscribers receive alerts when these public discussions will take place, thus streamlining research and investment decision making. The Borsa app is receiving considerable attention in the investment community. Yousef was recently interviewed on CNBC, during which he said his “goal was to make listening to earnings calls as easy as listening to a podcast.”
USI is becoming a major player in the entrepreneurial community. While not a Screaming Eagle alumnus himself, Yousef’s Borsa Finance startup received substantial support and insights from USI’s Eagle Innovation Accelerator (EIA), a collaborative effort between USI’s Romain College of Business, Outreach & Engagement, Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville (GAGE), Innovation Pointe and Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center (NWSC Crane) with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. These strategic partnerships have created an ecosystem that encourages an entrepreneurial mindset, both at USI and in the community, and supports startup efforts with tools, resources and financing.
Yousef and his business partner’s connections with TCA team members through Technology Commercialization Manager Josh McWilliams, now an Instructor of Computer Information Systems in the Romain College of Business, gave them insights into how best to build and monetize the app idea and garner the support and resources of the EIA.
The early days of the TCA initiative can be traced back to Mr. Bryan Bourdeau, Instructor in Business, and Dr. Kevin Celuch, Blair Chair of Business Science and Professor of Marketing, for their design and implementation of a unique accelerated commercialization process. Their inspiration for the Technology Commercialization Academy (TCA) was grounded primarily on their work in developing Romain College’s Entrepreneurship minor, which is based on assumption identification and testing through immersive learning. Academy participants work full time to develop ideas and business strategies around commercialization of Crane patents.
TCA teams work at USI’s facility in Innovation Pointe, a downtown Evansville business incubator and certified technology park. USI is the education partner of GAGE which manages Innovation Pointe. Yousef and his business partner, Sam Stevens of Newburgh, Indiana, worked at the Innovation Pointe co-workspace. In 2018, Yousef pitched his idea and placed first in two of EIA’s startup contests: APPCOM, an application idea competition, and BIZCOM, a business idea competition. Both solicit the best ideas from the greater USI community and connect those ideas to teams, mentors and other resources. The seed money funded a contract with local software development talent, allowing Borsa to successfully launch.
"Throughout my startup journey there are a number of people and programs that I can specifically point to and say that without them our company would not be as far along as we are now," said Yousef. "EIA, with the APPCOM and BIZCOM programs, was one of those programs. Their programs were clearly designed with the entrepreneur in mind. I'm very grateful to the mentorship and help that EIA has provided for Borsa."
Stevens works locally as a developer. Yousef is based in New York where he is a product manager for Kustomer, a CRM platform, but he continues to leverage resources in Evansville to refine the Borsa product.