2008 Woodie Awards
Home > News
Student-run businesses find success on campus
Thanks to the Internet, student entrepreneurs have found fortune nationwide, a UO professor says
by Eric Florip | News Editor
"We're going to launch the food guide to as many schools as possible, and then piggyback the classifieds on top of it," Jensen said. "We're hoping this will create a lot of buzz at those schools, and then we can add other features on top of that."
Better Bus operates with a slightly less ambitious approach to business, but co-founders and students Jered Parkin and Jonah Fruchter said they are happy with the bus' two trips so far this year. The service is still very much up and running and will make a third trip during Spring Break, but both said fewer students have used the service for the return trip back to campus than the initial trip home.
The biggest problem for Better Bus has been trying to reach students in the residence halls without being allowed to advertise inside them, Fruchter said. University Housing has said that only student organizations that are not for profit can advertise in the dorms.
"I think that's really a limiting factor on student businesses that are for profit, but yet education as well," Fruchter said.
Fruchter and Parkin both said they have received strong support from the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship and faculty in the University's business school.
"I would say all faculty - all my teachers or professors that know about it - they think it's awesome," Parkin said. "They're really excited for us."
For any student business now, a key to success is hitting the target audience right away, Meyer said.
"One difference is there is more of an emphasis on building a viable business - one that satisfies a genuine need, and there is an identifiable customer out there," Meyer said. "The other piece is that you've got to find somebody that's willing to pay."
There have been other successful University student businesses in the past, Meyer said. Paul Walton, a 2004 University graduate, began a business selling computer mice with the University's "O" logo on it while he attended school. Today, Walton owns Rhinotronix from North Bend, Ore., which sells a variety of technological accessories bearing dozens of other Universities' insignias.
Better Bus operates with a slightly less ambitious approach to business, but co-founders and students Jered Parkin and Jonah Fruchter said they are happy with the bus' two trips so far this year. The service is still very much up and running and will make a third trip during Spring Break, but both said fewer students have used the service for the return trip back to campus than the initial trip home.
The biggest problem for Better Bus has been trying to reach students in the residence halls without being allowed to advertise inside them, Fruchter said. University Housing has said that only student organizations that are not for profit can advertise in the dorms.
"I think that's really a limiting factor on student businesses that are for profit, but yet education as well," Fruchter said.
Fruchter and Parkin both said they have received strong support from the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship and faculty in the University's business school.
"I would say all faculty - all my teachers or professors that know about it - they think it's awesome," Parkin said. "They're really excited for us."
For any student business now, a key to success is hitting the target audience right away, Meyer said.
"One difference is there is more of an emphasis on building a viable business - one that satisfies a genuine need, and there is an identifiable customer out there," Meyer said. "The other piece is that you've got to find somebody that's willing to pay."
There have been other successful University student businesses in the past, Meyer said. Paul Walton, a 2004 University graduate, began a business selling computer mice with the University's "O" logo on it while he attended school. Today, Walton owns Rhinotronix from North Bend, Ore., which sells a variety of technological accessories bearing dozens of other Universities' insignias.
Be the first to comment on this story