T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Alfonso Medina, left, and John Selvidge, right, both of Marshalltown, are the cofounders of Omanu, an AI-powered, location-based app designed to assist aspiring entrepreneurs in turning their ideas into registered businesses.

A lot of people have great ideas for startup businesses, but few of them ever become reality. With a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered tool to help aspiring entrepreneurs navigate all the hurdles inherent to launching such an endeavor, Marshalltown’s own Alfonso Medina and John Selvidge are hoping to change that.

Medina, best known as the owner and operator of La Carreta Mexican Grill, is a longtime Marshalltown resident and MHS grad, while Selvidge, a software engineer by trade, is relatively new to the area, moving here from Phoenix, Ariz. just three years ago. They met each other through a mutual friend and hatched the idea for Omanu, a platform designed to help turn ideas into legally registered businesses, working together on it during weekly meetings at the old MEMBERS1ST Credit Union building near the Meadow Lane Mall for the last eight months.

“At the end of the day, Omanu’s going to be created to help people and kind of level out the field and give equal opportunity to turn their ideas into something and to use technology to do so,” Medina said.

Selvidge, who has a wide variety of experiences in the tech world, came in already familiar with web-based applications and AI, and their mutual friend quickly suggested that the two team up on the endeavor.

“There’s nothing quite like it,” he said. “And here we are, eight months later, about to launch.”

The way Omanu works, they explained, is that it allows users to plug their ideas in while allowing AI to provide a location-based summary report either encouraging them to move forward with the idea and take the next steps, revise it in some way, or simply scrap it altogether.

“It’ll give you kind of that up front validation and say ‘Hey, this is a great idea, you should definitely proceed’ or if not, you know, take a second glance at it. If you want to change your idea or modify it to make it match, or you can continue on,” Selvidge said. “We don’t prevent people from following through. If you really have a passion for your idea, you can always continue on. You don’t have to listen to the recommendation.”

As Medina noted, there are countless stories of companies whose founders were initially told the idea would never work, only to become hugely successful in the end. Omanu will first be launched in Iowa and around the U.S., but there are plans to expand into countries like Mexico and India.

“Those countries are heavy on entrepreneurship and that hustle culture, so we want them to use Omanu to supplement the drive and passion to succeed,” Selvidge said.

They’re still looking for testers to help improve the app in its infant stages.

“We want to take this opportunity, since we’re in Marshalltown and Marshalltown is a great entrepreneurship driven town. There’s a lot of young people that are hustlers and opening businesses. It’s gonna be a great opportunity to test it right here in Marshalltown,” Medina said.

The hope is that in the long term, Omanu will be a boon to the local and state economies by reducing barriers to business ownership, and Medina feels that it will be more beneficial than watching YouTube videos or ChatGPT, which tends to tell users what they want to hear and doesn’t provide more extensive follow up on how to make an idea reality.

Referencing his own family’s frequent conversations on business concepts, Medina noted that “there are ideas everywhere,” and Omanu can generate a step-by-step plan for its users in about five minutes.

“One thing that I do want to emphasize is (that) we’re making this as user friendly as possible. So anybody that hasn’t even touched or think they haven’t touched AI — because AI is everywhere now, it’s on your phones whether you like it or not — but we’re making it as user-friendly as (possible) so an 18-year-old or a 65-year-old can hop on,” he said. “We’re gonna make it entertaining, very user friendly, and people can have fun with it too. If they just want to validate ideas they’ve always had, they can do that. They don’t have to go at it if they don’t want to, but just to validate ideas, it’s gonna be really cool.”

One development that pleased Medina and Selvidge was testing the app in Tokyo, Japan, which has very specific regulations, and they’re working to launch it in at least four different languages out of the box.

“We did do pretty thorough research, and we haven’t found anybody else doing this where it kind of walks you through all the steps needed based on different categories like legal (and) marketing on what you should do,” Selvidge said. “(It will take you) from idea to ‘I have this legally operating business’ and I’m ready to open the doors and let people come in.”

Anyone interested in testing Omanu and getting early access can email Medina at alfonso@omanu.io, and they can visit our website at Omanu.io to learn more about Omanu before launch.

Contact Robert Maharry at (641) 753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.