Christoph Drechsler ‘18 (Computer Science) and Michael Tenzer ‘17 (MBA) share a love of tennis—a sport that would bring them together, first in 2009, and then again in 2015 at the University of Indianapolis. Christoph played on the men’s tennis team all four years of his college career, and Michael coincidently became the team’s assistant coach.
Their bond with the sport grew after graduation. While they worked in Indianapolis, they continued to play tennis together in their free time. As their friendship grew, they would often discuss their past experiences as tennis instructors and the difficulties of managing a small instructing business. Together, they set out to create a software that would streamline an instructor’s day-to-day operations. One week later, Planubo was born. Planubo—which is tailored for people who teach like tutors, tennis and golf coaches, music teachers, yoga instructors, etc.—is an online scheduling and client management software. It allows users to take care of all administrative tasks, like scheduling, attendance, payment, and staff and client communications.
Meet the UIndy graduates behind this innovative new software tool:
Christoph Drechsler
- Major: Computer science
- Current roles/employers: Senior software engineer, Golang and Ember at CrowdStrike + Cofounder, Planubo
- UIndy faculty or staff mentors:
- Dr. Usef Faghihi: “Thanks to him, I actually fell in love with programming. During my second semester, we worked together on educational games that we also presented at a conference at UIndy.”
- Dr. Octavian Nicolio: “We talked about different cyber security encryptions and his research studies (chaos-based cryptography) outside of office hours.”
- Extracurricular activities at UIndy: Men’s tennis team, including reaching the Final Four during his senior year
- Advice for UIndy students: “Try to do side projects with professors—you will learn so many more important things related to your studies. And meet new people, go have fun, don’t look back afterwards with regrets!”
Michael Tenzer
- Major: MBA (organizational leadership)
- Current roles/employers: Data analyst,Hoya Surgical Optics + Cofounder, Planubo
- What he liked about UIndy: “The small class sizes were beneficial because they allowed for more in-depth discussions, which were more valuable to me than plain lectures.”
- What he enjoyed about UIndy’s MBA program: “Since I attended the evening MBA, most of the students had already been in their professional lives for a few years. This allowed them to bring their work experiences and challenges to our courses, which led to interesting and valuable discussions.”
- Extracurricular activities at UIndy: Graduate assistant coach of the men’s tennis team
- Advice for UIndy students: “Don’t hesitate to ask for help if you don’t understand something or want career advice. During my time at UIndy, the faculty and staff were super friendly and more than happy to help.”
