Entrepreneurship
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Taryn Elaine Imagery /
MWest Challenge Finalist
Photo by Taryn Sack
Taryn Elaine Imagery
During my early years of college I discovered my love for photography. It began with my sister asking me to take her engagement photos on her Canon Rebel camera, and 50+ clients later I have been able to create a reputation for Taryn Elaine Images in the Grand Rapids area.
my work
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I have photographed weddings, engagements, high school seniors, families, professional head shots, and company marketing promotions. Photographing in these different settings has allowed me to strengthen and broaden my aesthetic design eye.
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My photography work has resulted in extensive knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. ​​
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Take a look at a sample of my work below.
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MWest Challenge Finalist
The MWest Challenge is a business pitch competition between all West Michigan colleges. In front of a panel of business leaders in Grand Rapids, each group presents a ten-minute pitch on a product or service. I recruited a team to help me pitch LunchPal, a digital lunch box creator and distributor. LunchPal came in fourth out of 72 teams.
my work
The inspiration behind LunchPal came from some self-reflection on my childhood. My mother was sick for the majority of my elementary and middle school years, and because of this I grew up making my own lunches every day. I thought about my own distaste for lunch packing and the mothers and fathers who hate packing lunches and grocery shopping. I delved into this problem by using user-centric design research and created a survey for moms and dads of school aged kids, while also going into the field to interview this demographic.
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The results of the survey showed that healthy food choices and ease of preparation were the two greatest burdens of lunch making. LunchPal could solve for both of these. With delivery services trending and health restrictions (e.g. gluten free and vegetarian) on the rise I created a service that attended to these characteristics.
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After proto-typing various websites and having moms/dads and children play with the prototypes, we created LunchPal, a service where a child can go online and click on his/her LunchPal and fill it with a healthy food item from each food group. Color coded icons allow for easy, child-friendly maneuvering through dietary restrictions [in our testing phase we discovered that some children were unable to read the original dietary restriction titles, and this solution helped tremendously]. The child packs for however many days of the week necessary. The LunchPals are then shipped to the home in a pre-packed, customized lunch box.
Take a look at our presentation deck and the video that walks through LunchPal's online lunch packing process.
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At the competition the LunchPal team took fourth out of 74 teams and walked away with a cash prize! LunchPal did not resume its development due to graduate college students taking jobs instead of pursuing entrepreneurship. It was an exciting journey full of growth and the refining of many skills.
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