The thought of students shelling out $200 or more for a textbook motivates Yale Fox, ArtSci ’07 and Matthew McWhirter, Comm ’07, to go to work in the morning. The two students are the founders of smartandbroke.com, an online textbook marketplace.
“[The motivation] was the outlandish cost of textbooks. I wanted to make it more affordable for students,” said Fox, who launched the site with McWhirter last year.
Smartandbroke.com allows students from various Canadian universities to buy and sell books at prices less than those at campus bookstores.
“Students are on a tight budget. The problem is the rising cost of textbooks,” said McWhirter, who is in charge of marketing for the business. “This is a realistic alternative, an outlet for students to find educational materials.” Fox and McWhirter said setting up their business wasn’t easy because of disagreements over website deadlines with contracted designers. The disputes ended in court proceedings, which Yale and McWhirter won.
“It was a headache,” Yale said, who paid around $10,000 to set up the business. “You had to be adamant and persistent.”
McWhirter said security issues were paramount during the website’s design process.
“The website needs to be -friendly and secure,” he said. “Thousands of people release their credit card and payment information to us.” McWhirter said another issue was the lack of from the University, which wouldn’t give them permission to distribute flyers on campus.
“They never returned our phone calls,” he said. “I think they felt threatened that we would provide the Campus Bookstore and the Greenroom with competition.” Fox said running a business hasn’t interfered with his or McWhirter’s studies.
“We knew we couldn’t procrastinate, so it actually helped with our time management,” he said.
McWhirter said both have other activities on their plate as well. He is in the process of setting up another business called Creo Solutions, which will provide marketing research consultation to small businesses in Kingston, while Yale has been accepted into a humpback whale research program at the Dolphin Institute in Honolulu, Hawaii.
McWhirter said running the business has been very fulfilling.
“It’s not the same as working in a bar, going there and putting in a certain number of hours and getting paid,” he said. “It’s like seeing a child grow.”
As young entrepreneurs, Fox added they are involved in running a business hands-on while their contemporaries learn theories in class. That perspective helps them learn, he said.
“You see the mistakes that are made on a small scale, which will help us with planning businesses on a large scale in the future,” Fox said.
McWhirter said starting a business before having other financial commitments allows him to take greater risks as an entrepreneur.
“Most people start businesses after working in the corporate world for 15 to 20 years,” he said. “But there’s a higher risk in that, because they have a family to , while we have the ability to expose ourselves to risks.” Fox said although the business took a year to set up, their website has received high traffic.
He said people around them were surprised that the idea hadn’t been thought of before.
“Everyone thought it was a really good idea,” Fox said.
McWhirter said the most important business trait for young entrepreneurs is commitment. “It never hurts to try,” Fox said. “As long as you treat everything as a learning experience, you can’t fail.”
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