Dorm room startups, new app developments, and entrepreneurs in college are no new thing, but it’s always exciting to see the success stories. We had the opportunity to interview Brian Adams, an Entrepreneurial Communications major and Senior at Ohio University, who founded the app MyCampus. MyCampus is an app that allows students to communicate with one another about textbooks that they want to buy or sell. They can use the app to contact one another, send payments, and get their textbooks without having to divulge any personal information. It’s a safe way for students to get rid of old textbooks and make some money. Future plans for app include to expand to a shipping method as well, so students are not limited to their own campuses.
What inspired him?
Brian was inspired to create the MyCampus app after buying and selling items on Craigslist during his early college years. He wanted to create an app that could help students buy textbooks by providing a safe service where students could reach out to others on campus. He began with the idea and spent about 10 months going over it and getting feedback so he could tailor it to students’ needs. Then through an accelerator program he moved forward with the app, with the help of seed funding. With the help of the accelerator he was able to get guidance and feedback for his app, as well as assistance creating a business model. He outsourced development, and with the help of beta testers and reliable feedback, worked on an interface that is user friendly and something students want to use. In 2012, he had 14,000 visitors from his college alone.
What was the most difficult part?
Brian’s journey to create the app came with struggles, which were mostly from the technical standpoint of application development. His main suggestion for creating a successful app is feedback, since he heavily relied on it from beta testers and users, in order to make improvements.
How did he get the word out?
Through channels like Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, Brian partnered with popular accounts and pages to let him advertise his app, which promoted the app to a wider audience. Since the majority of the traffic he initially received for the app was from Apple iOS, the app will first be release for iPhones, but he intends to make it available on the Android platform as well. The app will officially launch in January for Ohio University and Ohio State.
