Small businesses launch, reap big rewards in experience and money

By Sol Tran

Twenty-five students huddle in a room in Lucas Hall excitedly talking among each other. The gathering looks like any normal class. But a closer examination of the conversation reveals that they are working on developing the web site SCULife.com, an online community for Santa Clara students. It is one of several student businesses that have been launched from Santa Clara this year.

Currently, SCULife.com receives nearly 300 visitors per week. It works to help students sell textbooks, provide a place to discuss campus issues and rate top athletes among a myriad of other features.

The developers are all Santa Clara students who have put in hours of their time perfecting all aspects of the Web site: marketing it, protecting it from hackers and much more.

Freshman Tiffany Liou, vice president of operations at Campus Kiwi, the organization that oversees SCULife.com, feels empowered within the student group and is excited to be in the midst of such an innovative environment.

"The culture we have here is incredible" said Liou. "Being in an organization like this, I feel like my voice matters. It is exciting to be doing this as a freshman."

In fact, most of the students in Campus Kiwi are either freshmen or sophomores. They are anchored, however, by CEO Conrad Egusa and four other seniors who bring a lot of experience to the table as a result of their seasoned job prowess.

Freshman Dennis Ding, vice president of finance at Campus Kiwi, says that being in the Silicon Valley provides access to a wealth of advice and expertise to him as a student.

"There is the faculty who are so helpful," said Ding. "They have a lot of experiences and can offer you a lot of insight. If you want someone for advice, being at Santa Clara, you can get it from a professor or travel around the area to find the person to help."

Junior Joel Ching, founder of the student-launched business Kumu Connect, has also found the same to be true when it came to the beneficial Santa Clara community.

"The entrepreneurship community at Santa Clara and Silicon Valley has really helped me take Kumu Connect to the next level," said Ching.

In starting Kumu Connect, Ching has found a way to align a student's budget with a professor's desire for flexibility with textbook material. Launched during winter quarter this year, his site provides a textbook/student/notes hybrid that replaces textbooks with interactive online Kumu books that are adapted for each individual class at a fraction of the price of a regular textbook.

Kumu Connect has enjoyed early success, earning $1,500 to date in revenue. It is in the process of being expanded to classrooms at the University of Southern California and the University of Hawaii.

The successes of these two student businesses have inspired some friendly competition between the two founders. Campus Kiwi's Conrad Egusa beat out Kumu Connect's Joel Ching for the $500 top prize of a Business Plan Competition in March. They competed against each other again last Tuesday during the $500 Elevator Pitch Competition.

Ultimately for the two business entrepreneurs, it is about the learning experience. Starting their own businesses has enabled many students to apply the material they learned in class, from accounting to engineering to communication.

"The biggest lesson I have learned is that ideas are just ideas until you put it to work," said Ching. "Entrepreneurship is really hard work. You really have to believe in it."

With the positive outcomes from SCULife.com and Kumu Connect's book sales, it appears that the entrepreneurs' hard work is paying off. You too= can experience the success of your fellow Santa Clara student entrepreneurs if you have the opportunity to buy cheaper textbooks off SCULife.com or discover that your professor has decided to go with a $20 Kumu book instead of a textbook.

Contact Sol Tran at solscreen@gmail.com.