At 20 years old, Junior Seidenberg and Pforzheimer’s Honors college student Tyler Yeung has a mission to change the way programmers are able to share and sell their content. Seven years ago, Tyler had the idea to start a platform where small creators were able to “discover and be discovered” by forming meaningful discussions and connecting with people from around the world.
In the Summer of 2022, Averent was born. The name “Averent” comes from the sentence “Average Everyday People Who Invent.”
Currently in the development stage, Averent is a desktop platform where creators can post, sell, and advertise their content. The programmers behind Averent are meticulously working to build a unique algorithm feed fousers, catered to their likes. The team is working on their Minimum Viable Product (MVP) – the simplest version of their site – hoping to launch it this year.
Tyler Yeung started as an engineering student at NYU two years ago. He left NYU and came to Pace in 2023, bringing along the work he had done over the previous summer. At Pace, Tyler found resources at Seidenberg and through Pace’s Entrepreneurship Lab, but most recently with The Front Yard.
We had the pleasure of speaking with Tamir Harosh, the faculty advisor for the Front Yard, who says “The Front Yard at Pace University is an educational platform designed to equip Pace University students, faculty, staff, and alumni with the most advanced ‘toolbox’ for pursuing their entrepreneurial endeavors.
“With programs such as Startups in Residence, International Entrepreneur in Residence, and a Masterclass lecture series, The Front Yard is excited to introduce a new initiative for students’ startup ventures. In collaboration with The Front Yard’s partners, mentors, advisory board members, and various schools and departments across Pace University, student startups will have a unique opportunity to develop and advance their ventures.
“The Front Yard will create a tailored plan for each student startup, guiding the founders and their teams throughout their journey. Averent is the first startup to join this program. Averent aims to foster a community and build an ecosystem of creators who can collaborate through an innovative and advanced platform. We welcome Averent to The Front Yard and look forward to working with Tyler Yeung and his team.”
As co-founder and CEO of Averent, Tyler describes the resources at Pace as invaluable to the current stage his start-up is in. Recounting the early stages of development, Tyler said that his team used to have to leave their computers on overnight to keep their algorithm running. Now, the Averent team has the resources and trust to work on their program with advanced equipment through Seidenberg.
Tyler met his co-founder, 18-year-old Rabi Khan, ten years ago, playing games on a random Minecraft server. The more they played together, the more they learned about each other, finally discovering their mutual love of coding. Tyler started coding when he was 12 and decided to tell Rabi about his idea for Averent once he learned he enjoyed coding too. Rabi recalls being interested in the concept because he himself wanted a platform to share and see creative programming content. He says he “likes how the platform focuses on smaller creators rather than big creators.”
Rabi is an engineering student at the University of Calgary in Canada, and his current role with Averent is Co-founder and CFO. At this stage of development, Rabi is also the lead back-end developer. While Tyler is creating the front end, what users see on the website, Rabi is coding the part of the website that holds data, like usernames and passwords. He is also working on setting up a payment portal for subscriptions, commissions, and advertisements. Tyler and Rabi have never met in person, as Rabi is in Canada, and Tyler is NYC based. But, as Tyler says, “You don’t need to be in physical contact to do this kind of stuff.”
When Tyler transferred to Pace, he decided to ramp up the development of Averent by recruiting students from Seidenberg and Lubin. As an Honors student, Tyler has been able to share his recruitment process via email advertisements. Averent has recruited NYC students, PLV students, and alumni to work alongside the two founders. The newest member of the team, Liz Black, describes how “none of us have one particular role we stick to – Averent is a pretty big project and we’re a small group.”
The team at Averent has designed a unique way to create profit while continuing to put small creators first. They have come up with an idea called “intra-platform advertising,” where each creator will have the opportunity to advertise their product to another creator’s audience through their unique algorithm. Averent, unlike other platforms like the App Store, will not take commission or fees from any sale on individual creators’ personal server or platform. Instead, they will use intra-platform advertising as a way to make profit and allow creators to use each other’s user base to increase their sales exponentially.
Averent is not a simple start-up. The algorithm in and of itself is hours of work. Although Tyler has seen a lot of interest in joining the Averent team, he and the other hiring members have carefully selected the people he wanted to join them. This, however, means they’re all doing a lot of work. Liz Black says, “I’d say our biggest challenge has been that the scope of everything we want to do requires a bigger team than we have, so we all have to do three people’s worth of work.”
In employing mainly students, Averent is facing some time commitment challenges as well. Tyler says he understands that school comes first, especially since he is a student himself, and Averent employment is currently unpaid. Tyler and the team at Averent use Teams to assign and complete tasks. Tyler says that since most of his team are students, the tasks are assigned with a rough due date, to be completed whenever the team member has the chance. Tyler says that work always ramps up over the summer, when the team has more free time, which is why he is confident a form of their MVP will be out this year.
The team at Averent is made up of different students from different fields and backgrounds. Sapna Naidu is a master’s student at Pace, specializing in Cybersecurity, and volunteering with Averent in her spare time. She joined Averent because she wanted to “surround [herself] with like-minded people who will support [her] growth as a developer.” She is primarily focusing on front-end UI design and development. When asked about her experience working with Averent, Sapna said “I recently joined Averent, and my entire experience has been very insightful, informative, and positive. The atmosphere is appreciative, and learning is encouraged.”
Junior Seidenberg student Joseph Scorsone, a back-end software engineer, joined team Averent because he liked the product, and the business model resonated with him. Joseph said “My experience has been mostly rewriting, and business logic. Porting features over to use different things and helping with the business side of growth.”
When asked about the future, responses from each team member interviewed varied based on their role. As CEO, Tyler is focusing on the now; he believes in Averent, that’s clear, but he is taking it one step at a time like a true entrepreneur. His co-founder, Rabi, sees Averent as a “fully formed company with the same vision.” He wants to continue to make revenue in a way that doesn’t exploit their users and continue their practice of intra-platform advertising. Liz said, “The product we’ve come up with will be the first of its kind and truly revolutionize its market, and with the right approach, we can make it a reality.” and Sapna thinks “Averent deserves to be at the front and center of all social media platforms.” Finally, Joseph’s vision is simple: he wants to see Averent as an app on his friend’s phones.