Soon college graduate looking at options and for advice.
3 comments
Hiya, UC Berkeley engineer, MIT Sloan MBA guy here. I'd advise you to reconsider continuing. Plenty of students have tried the text-book business and have failed. The problem is that text books have such low profit-margins that there are few viable ways to make a sustainable business out these ventures.
I would consider your venture a great success as you have learned many things from it, and you have a great site to show for during interviews. That said, investors will likely not invest due to low margins, low barrier of entry for others, no switching cost for your users (therefore low loyalty to your brand), hard to scale... and the list goes on.
As a student I believe you've done a tremendous accomplishment, but would advise you reconsider either your business or working on your current venture full time.
Best of wishes and desire tremendous success for your career or venture.
I would consider your venture a great success as you have learned many things from it, and you have a great site to show for during interviews. That said, investors will likely not invest due to low margins, low barrier of entry for others, no switching cost for your users (therefore low loyalty to your brand), hard to scale... and the list goes on.
As a student I believe you've done a tremendous accomplishment, but would advise you reconsider either your business or working on your current venture full time.
Best of wishes and desire tremendous success for your career or venture.
Wow, thank you so much for replying, it really means a lot to hear any sort of feedback!
We spent the past year on textbooks alone because we knew the space and had the code. As the year and summer progresses, we will be moving more permanently into the geographically-based marketplace space, with an emphasis on the Craigslist style of meeting someone at a location to exchange goods, or pick something up. Starting with colleges (because it's a community of people who generally have good reason to trust one another), I'd like to see us develop a product that allows students to resell textbooks to one another, sell furniture to one another, etc.
That said, obviously it's a space heavily occupied right now. My guess is (if you'll read my response) you'll hardly change your mind, and that's great too -- the fact you responded at all means a lot to me!
We spent the past year on textbooks alone because we knew the space and had the code. As the year and summer progresses, we will be moving more permanently into the geographically-based marketplace space, with an emphasis on the Craigslist style of meeting someone at a location to exchange goods, or pick something up. Starting with colleges (because it's a community of people who generally have good reason to trust one another), I'd like to see us develop a product that allows students to resell textbooks to one another, sell furniture to one another, etc.
That said, obviously it's a space heavily occupied right now. My guess is (if you'll read my response) you'll hardly change your mind, and that's great too -- the fact you responded at all means a lot to me!
It's not a space I'd personally want to touch with a ten foot pole and a government handout.
But so what? You're enjoying it, and from the sounds of it you're probably making enough that nobody involved is going to starve or end up buried under a debt mountain. Managing the downside risk works out to "use a lawyer and don't sign anything with stupid terms."
As long as you're keeping your skills up, your failure mode is "quit, get a job somewhere playing code monkey for (floor $60k/yr, ceil ???)." You've got a safety net that is virtually unrivaled in history.
So go nuts, be young, spend a few years making mistakes and learning stuff. As career trajectories go, "failed startup" is far better for your resume than "agency seat filler" - at least for the next year or three, and assuming you do your due diligence with regard to skills maintenance, networking, and documenting your expertise (which would be equally important as an agency seat filler).
Yeah, there are better ways to optimize for career trajectory. If that's your sole priority, you should probably land a job at Googlesoft or in a field like finance, then spend the next year or three focused on networking your ass off.
But would you be happy with it, during or after? Probably less so.
Since neither option is exactly going to have you standing in the bread line, even if your choice of venture turns out to be a spectacular failure - you're free to choose based on personal fulfillment, not just socioeconomic leverage.
And, you know, it could work out. Which would be nice, but it's not something that's necessary for it to be worth your time.
But so what? You're enjoying it, and from the sounds of it you're probably making enough that nobody involved is going to starve or end up buried under a debt mountain. Managing the downside risk works out to "use a lawyer and don't sign anything with stupid terms."
As long as you're keeping your skills up, your failure mode is "quit, get a job somewhere playing code monkey for (floor $60k/yr, ceil ???)." You've got a safety net that is virtually unrivaled in history.
So go nuts, be young, spend a few years making mistakes and learning stuff. As career trajectories go, "failed startup" is far better for your resume than "agency seat filler" - at least for the next year or three, and assuming you do your due diligence with regard to skills maintenance, networking, and documenting your expertise (which would be equally important as an agency seat filler).
Yeah, there are better ways to optimize for career trajectory. If that's your sole priority, you should probably land a job at Googlesoft or in a field like finance, then spend the next year or three focused on networking your ass off.
But would you be happy with it, during or after? Probably less so.
Since neither option is exactly going to have you standing in the bread line, even if your choice of venture turns out to be a spectacular failure - you're free to choose based on personal fulfillment, not just socioeconomic leverage.
And, you know, it could work out. Which would be nice, but it's not something that's necessary for it to be worth your time.
Thank you so much for the reply, it means a lot.
These are the kinds of points I've been thinking, but wanted to make sure I wasn't overly confident in thinking. It's very very nice hearing it from someone else. Thank you for your time!
These are the kinds of points I've been thinking, but wanted to make sure I wasn't overly confident in thinking. It's very very nice hearing it from someone else. Thank you for your time!
> It excites the hell out of me.
> In my wildest fantasies...
> Nothing would make me happier than to work on this full-time
I think you answered your own question. You can't make any stronger statements for what you want to do than the above lines I quoted. The FUD will always be there with this sort of decision.
Also, don't take any advice on if it will work or not. Nobody has the experience you do working this niche. Even if they are doing something similar, your situation is unique, and you will find other angles you can hit this from to make it grow. With your time time attention on this, you might also find other things you can experiment with when your niche is out of season.
All the things you mentioned that you would like to do will give you great experience also. Go for it.
> In my wildest fantasies...
> Nothing would make me happier than to work on this full-time
I think you answered your own question. You can't make any stronger statements for what you want to do than the above lines I quoted. The FUD will always be there with this sort of decision.
Also, don't take any advice on if it will work or not. Nobody has the experience you do working this niche. Even if they are doing something similar, your situation is unique, and you will find other angles you can hit this from to make it grow. With your time time attention on this, you might also find other things you can experiment with when your niche is out of season.
All the things you mentioned that you would like to do will give you great experience also. Go for it.
Since you seem gung-Ho give it a try. But you may want to rethink your market sizing ambitions. I agree the textbook flipping market seems pretty competitive. This won't be a "make you rich" business unless you expand and find a competitive advantage.
I have this business with a few friends. We act as middlemen to redirect college students to the cheapest ways to get their books. We're at a few locations, and this past year sold about $80k worth of product through Amazon (of which we're affiliates) and an average of 10k traffic at our heaviest site on season (textbooks are seasonal). You can check out the site (for all its coding mishaps and horrors) at www.tuftstext.com .
I've worked for a small start-up after freshman year, a large web company last year, and working at a top tier tech company this summer doing software development. For all intents and purposes, I might be able to have a career in software development post-graduation.
This business with a few friends is beginning to grow in idea and in scope. We're looking at expanding the suite of tools we have available, bringing in an additional developer and designer over the summer, and starting up hardcore inbound marketing efforts to really drive up traffic. It excites the hell out of me.
As job offers will likely be made this summer (we're all graduating next year), the big conversation is approaching about continuing or not. In my wildest fantasies we'd all move into a shitty apartment for at least 6 months, work the hell out of the business and see where it goes. Nothing would make me happier than to work on this full-time, but I'm unsure if it's just my young over-estimation of our abilities pushing me in that direction.<p>Have any of you been in similar positions? If so, what happened? Do you regret your choice, whatever it was?
Thank you so much for your time, even if you just skimmed it.
EDIT:
Just wanted to clarify the business itself, as I didn't anticipate the generosity of HNers to extend to analyzing my particular situation in detail.
We currently occupy the textbook referral space, connecting students and the cheapest ways to get their books. We also offer the ability to schedule courses for students, a valuable tool most campuses don't offer. In the immediate future, we hope to extend to the geographically-based marketplace space. By that I mean college students selling textbooks, furniture, homeware, cookware, etc. to other college students on their campus. No shipping hassles. Craigslist on a smaller scale of a community you trust by association.