Interview with DormItem Founder, Dan Scudder
Dan Scudder is a Babson College entrepreneurship student where he has received “undergraduate business hatchery space” for his literal college startup company, DormItem: Free College Classifieds.
College Startup is excited for the chance to interview one of our own (a college entrepreneur)! Dan is a real life entrepreneur who is making his business ideas a reality…while in college. We wish him and DormItem the best of luck!
1. Tell us a bit about your startup business “DormItem”.
DormItem is a free college classifieds site that looks to aggregate and bring students the latest classifieds from their area. We have a powerful ‘microregional’ system that goes beyond the limits of a college campus, allowing students to see listings from their whole college area. This is a unique feature that we developed, so for example, a Boston University student won’t be limited to seeing just listings from their school. Our database is smart enough to tell them if the item they are looking for is available at a nearby school as well. Additionally, DormItem makes trading safer for students than an alternative such as craigslist because we have partnered with Rapleaf, a buyer/seller feedback system that tells you when you are dealing with a student. DormItem offers RSS integration with student web portals, giving college IT departments to attract more portal traffic through classifieds.
2. When you contacted me, you mentioned that you received “undergraduate business hatchery space.” Tell us a bit about this concept and how it works.
Hatchery space is like a business incubator. Babson gives us the necessary resources needed to operate a business, such as an office, phone lines, faxes, copiers, etc. Additionally, they provide us with faculty and outside advisors, such as former venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, who guide us through the startup process. Being a college student, we can sometimes get slammed with schoolwork and business. The advisors help us manage this. Also, having an office space is good because it allows you to sit down and focus on business, instead of having to operate out of a dorm, which can be distraction.
3. I noticed from the TechCrunch article that you developed in Rails and that you brought Zack Coburn on board to help out. Can you describe the roles that you and Zack took in the development of the site?
I met Zack through Madhens over the summer, and he goes to Olin College, which is right next to Babson. We partnered up and built the site together. He does development, and I guess I am the business guy. I wrote a business plan, deal with the operations day-to-day, and he writes killer code and handles all the technical issues. Zack is very entrepreneurial, so he is a great person to work with because he also has an understanding of business. I also have an understanding of the technical jargon and capabilities, so that helps our communication of the vision for the site.
4. Tell us a little about your marketing techniques for DormItem. In my view, that’s one of the toughest parts about being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs naturally love coming up with ideas and running with them, but spreading the word is another thing all together. What have you been doing to get the word out (by the way, you should really think about doing interviews with college and business sites;-)
For marketing we’ve been doing a few guerilla tactics. The biggest thing for us is the Facebook share feature, so when you a post a listing, it also goes directly up onto your facebook profile and the news feed. This drives a lot of traffic and brand awareness. We have had a bunch of media attention (www.dormitem.com/content/buzz) and that has helped as well. We use emails to undergraduate student bodies, and that also brings a lot of traffic and new listings to the site. The most important thing we did during development was SEO the site. Search ‘wii bundle pack’ on google and you will see dormitem appear right at the top. Each listing has its own unique URL.
5. I noticed that you only cover a limited set of colleges. Tell us the reason for that and also how you plan to expand to cover a wider base of schools.
We chose to start small and focus our marketing in a certain area. Facebook started by creating demand at other schools by not opening up everywhere. We are trying to follow the same model. We don’t have the resources to market nationwide, so by focusing on a few small, dense areas, we can prove our model, build some buzz, and then grow.
6. You mentioned that you’ve developed the functionality for RSS integration into web portals. That’s a fantastic idea, by the way. But it also takes work on a variety of levels to develop partnerships. Have you been able to forge any partnerships at this early stage?
Babson has been the first college to integrate into their portal. Here is a look at what they did with it. It is difficult to promote to schools, because administrators are slow and often don’t really care about their classifieds system. We have made contact with some other schools, and over winter break we hope to close those deals. Schools do like our service, its just a matter of getting them to take the time to integrate it.
7. There are a number of classified systems out there, even for colleges. What separates DormItem from the rest of the pack and what do you plan to do to make that separation even wider?
DormItem is unique because of our microregional system. Existing school’s classifieds systems are limited to their own campus. This makes them less useful, because there is no reason to limit it to a campus. Therefore, the RSS feed that we give to a school is configured to show all listings in that schools ‘microregion’. There is no way a school IT department would collaborate with other college’s IT departments in the area to build a classifieds that is linked across all colleges. Other college classifieds sites have the same problem, because you choose a campus and can only see listings from that campus. They also create the problem of having preset categories, so if you post in the wrong category or in a less viewed category, you won’t sell your item. Who am I to dictate what items someone can post in? That is why we brought the tagging system in, allowing students to tag their listings with relevant keywords. DormItem is also safer with Rapleaf buyer/seller feedback, providing students a safer alternative to craigslist. Of course, our AJAX live search, the “itemizr”, is pretty cool, and just the AJAX throughout the site makes it pretty nifty and fun to use.
8. I love the microregional idea and I’ve thought for a while now that localizing services on the web is the key to differentiation. Have you considered taking this functionality into other business ventures?
This is our big differentiator, and we do have some new features launching that will integrate that functionality. Basically, we are going to go beyond buying and selling items to some other things that students could benefit from with a more regional approach. These will all be out over the next few weeks.
9. Lots of websites have become extremely popular but have also been extremely difficult to monetize. Do you guys have a plan for monetizing DormItem, or for the time being are you just focused on building a user base with the hopes that a large user base will naturally monetize?
Currently, we just focus on the user base building. That in itself can grow and then will become monetized later. We do have some small ads, but nothing that is a real revenue driver. Down the road we plan to integrate a unique revenue model, allowing local businesses to promote to students in their area. But for now, we are building the site up with traffic and features.
10. How has the feedback been from students so far? Have you been pleaed with the reception that your site has received from users and various media outlets?
The media has been positive, probably because we are student entrepreneurs. Students also really enjoy the service. I got two emails from people yesterday, one saying “love what you guys have done with the site. It has made my move a lot easier” and “selling on dormitem was a pleasant experience”. Hearing things like this makes me feel good because I have actually created something of value, but it also shows that the service works, which is always a positive thing.
11. Any closing thoughts or advice for the readers of College Startup? Many of us are jealous of you for having a real practical product, btw!
To the readers of college startup, just keep using the internet for what its made for. The net has been built by community, for community, and I believe it will only continue to get better as young people innovate and create new tools and technologies. If you have a business idea, now is the best time to get into the web and learn about how great it can become. Good luck!
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