By Faran Fagen
Anthony Tan and two classmates at Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts founded Prodigy Pro to build the starting point they wished they’d had as young entrepreneurs.
“Attending Dreyfoos also shaped how we saw the project,” said Tan, of Hypoloxo. “At an arts school, we learn to create, take criticism, and translate the ideas in our heads into experiences for other people.”
Tan, Aiden Azoy and Mia Rubio, all seniors at Dreyfoos, launched Prodigy Pro to make entrepreneurship accessible to their peers. The AI-powered platform helps students organize ideas, document tasks and milestones, and validate business risks.
Their mission: To build the missing infrastructure between a young person’s idea and the resources, guidance, teammates and systems needed to turn it into a real venture.
“A student can start with nothing more than an idea,” said Tan, 17. “They have an idea but don’t know what to do next. Prodigy Pro helps them define the problem and who they’re serving and test their assumptions.”
Prodigy Pro (Prodigypro.app) also remembers each student’s goals and progress, so the guidance gets more specific over time. More than 15,000 students in 20 countries — including Sudan and Malaysia — have now used it, much use coming from students recommending it to their friends.
Earlier this year, the Dreyfoos students won $7,500 in the nationwide Mott Million Dollar Challenge, which helped them fund the platform, making it free for its users.
Prodigy is a single workspace for taking a venture from idea to pilot: tasks, road map, validation, contacts, forms and automations, all in one place. The site covers every part of the product, from the sidebar structure down to the individual fields on a record.
The trio were inspired by West Palm Beach’s growing reputation as one of America’s next tech hubs. A networking group dubbed Wall Street South often holds events not far from the school, and Tan was in awe when he attended with his friends.
“We saw a huge inflow of major firms coming to South Florida, like Wells Fargo, ServiceNow, and recently Andreessen Horowitz, but there was little that teenagers like us could actually take part in, even though we were literally hundreds of feet away from where it was happening,” Tan said. “Access depended on who you knew, that the information was scattered, and most programs assumed you were an adult who already knew the process.”
Tan identifies several keys to the program’s success: Prodigy Pro started with a problem the three personally experienced, and they kept changing the platform based on where users got confused. Another paramount factor is that the problem has proven to be global, and word-of-mouth growth has been really meaningful in helping them reach people.
Prodigy Pro isn’t just an app, it’s a framework Tan uses to pressure-test his own ideas. Questions that he’s faced daily include: What problem are we solving? Who has it? What evidence do we have?
Tan’s mom, Elisa Hung, is amazed at how many people Tan and his classmates have reached with the project.
“We are deeply grateful to Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts for the strong academic preparation and an exceptional music education that have helped Anthony grow into a well-rounded young man,” Hung said. “This foundation, combined with his interests in business and technology, has given him the confidence to pursue his dreams and believe in what he can achieve.”
Tan hasn’t committed to any colleges yet, but plans to major in the area of applied math or economics.
“I want to keep working where technology, business and research meet problems that actually matter to people,” said Tan. “I want to change the world and make an impact on people. Hopefully this is just a step toward bigger things I can do in the future.”
The founders of Prodigy Pro will graduate in May, but say the platform will remain a free resource for students worldwide.
Comments