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Whopathons are 3-hour experiential events where students launch AI-powered online businesses, giving your program trackable outcomes like businesses created and revenue generated.
Already hosted at
How It Works
A structured experience that takes students from zero to launched.
Students identify a problem they care about and choose a business model: service, digital product, community, or software.
Using AI tools, students build their actual product, create their storefront on Whop, and develop a go-to-market strategy, step by step.
Students leave with a live online business they can continue growing after the event, during college and long after graduation.
Everything Included
Your university gets a complete toolkit. No deep expertise in online business required.
Step-by-step guide for instructors: how to structure the event, manage the room, and run each phase of the Whopathon.
Pre-built video content walks students through every stage, from finding a problem to launching their storefront.
AI education is built into the entire event. Students learn to build with modern tools while creating their businesses.
Track businesses created, revenue generated, and student engagement. Real metrics your center can actually report on.
Case Studies
Washington University in St. Louis
Skandalaris Center Whopathon
Students built products with AI, designed storefronts, and launched real businesses. Several teams selected for follow-on funding from the Skandalaris Center.
Businesses launched
Michigan State University
350+ Students Launch Businesses
Instructor Ken Szymusiak integrated Whop into his course. 350+ students launched real businesses, proving the model works at massive scale inside existing coursework.
Businesses launched
University at Buffalo
100 Students. 100 Businesses.
The event that started it all. 100 students showed up, explored Whop, and every single one launched a business by the end. UB's format became the blueprint for the Whopathon.
100 businesses launched including
Your University Here
Join 122 universities already running Whopathons. Book a call and bring this to your campus.
Book a Call →Why Now
Students need income, skills, identity, community. They need to build, not just study.
AI Is Reshaping Everything
Entry-level roles are getting more competitive. Students who can build with AI have a massive edge over everyone else.
Revenue > Resume
Students don't want theory. They want to take a skill or niche they understand and turn it into real income. Now, not after graduation.
Builders, Not Applicants
Once students earn their first dollar online, something clicks. They stop seeing themselves as job applicants and start seeing themselves as builders.
"Entrepreneurship doesn't start with raising capital. It starts with creating value and getting paid for it."
A service. A digital product. A community. A tool built with AI. Whopathons show students that a real business can start with something simple.
Results
"What has become very clear over the past two years is that my students now have the ability to build at superhuman speed. What used to take weeks now takes hours. This has profoundly changed how entrepreneurship education is taught. It has to be about experimenting, not case studies of the past."
Ken Szymusiak
Managing Director, Burgess Institute, Michigan State University
"Whop takes an already fun, experiential class and adds a little extra juice due to the ease of getting student ideas launched and the fact that real dollars are immediately available."
Joel Wooten
Associate Professor & Academic Director, MSBA, University of South Carolina
"Now, more than ever, students are interested in creative entrepreneurship. Their challenge is community building and sales strategy to monetize their creative output, whether as a side hustle or full-time gig. That's the big opportunity this next generation is chasing, and it's changing the way we think about entrepreneurship."
Linda Dickerson Hartsock
Founder, Blackstone LaunchPad, Syracuse University
FAQ
A 3-hour event where students identify a problem, choose a business model, build their product with AI, launch a storefront on Whop, and walk out with a live, revenue-ready business.
No. We give you a complete playbook with step-by-step instructions plus guided video modules for students. It runs smoothly even if the host has zero online business experience.
20 to 200+. The guided format and video modules scale naturally. Every student gets the same high-quality experience.
Book a call and we'll walk you through everything, including how we partner with universities to make Whopathons accessible.
Services, digital products, communities, software tools. Anything they can sell online. Past examples: tech consulting, wellness brands, recruiting platforms, peer marketplaces.
That's the whole point. Students leave with a live business on Whop they can keep growing. Many are earning real income from businesses they started at a Whopathon.
Purdue, University of Buffalo, University of South Carolina, Washington University in St. Louis, and dozens more. 3,000+ students have launched businesses generating over $5M in revenue collectively.
Book a call. We'll show you how it works and how your students can start building their first source of income online.