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Mallory Biggar
sfcc.mallory.biggar@gmail.com
Former SFCC students and brother-sister duo, Justin and Caitlin Pinter, co-developed the website CollegeOwlz.com. What started as a class project burgeoned into a successful start-up company.
While attending Eastern Washington University for a degree in business management, Caitlin came up with the concept for the website.
“It was my last year there and I was taking an entrepreneurship class and we had to come up with a business plan. Then I had a meeting with an old family friend who wanted to invest,” Caitlin said.
“He told me to speak with my brother because he has a background in web development and graphic design. Two years down the road, we have a website up and going.”
CollegeOwlz is a web-based platform that allows students to buy and sell their used textbooks and notes both locally and securely.
“[The concept] is to benefit students; help them save time and money,” Justin said. “They get ripped-off by bookstores for their buybacks, so creating that peer-to-peer marketplace will generate a center and wealth of knowledge. For anyone, really.”
Once signed up for CollegeOwlz, the user is able to buy textbooks from, or sell textbooks to, other students at their school, or schools in their region. Additionally, users are able to virtually share their notes.
“There are three types of notes that a student can sell,” Justin said in an October interview. “Class notes, that’s your basic lecture note, a book note, and a study guide. Eventually we’ll be adding flashcards.”
Since then, the website has changed significantly.
“We had a new site redesign that we launched in February; it’s a lot easier, simpler, more organized,” said Justin. “Students now add their courses first, then when you post your notes, everything’s organized. So it’s relative to what you’re taking.”
The site offers myriad ways for students to connect and contribute to the site.
“Our social media has blown up,” said Justin. “If you look, our Facebook’s got over 32,000 likes. We have student blogs, [so we] get a lot of guest bloggers. We have a girl from Brooklyn College in New York, another girl from New York State University, a couple Eastern students, and then we’ve got some students down at WSU writing blogs for us on a regular basis.”
CollegeOwlz is now moving towards being more involved in CCS on-campus life.
“We actually also got a really good in with SCC, which we’re thinking, hopefully, will carry over to [SFCC],” Justin said. “We’re involved with their … student activity club. They’re going to make CollegeOwlz the campus’ official used textbook place.
“They’re giving us free booth days at the campus, student [activities] is getting involved, we’re gonna start sponsoring a couple events. We’re gonna do like, a SpoCon, like a ComiCon there come fall. We’re just trying to get more involved with students at different campuses.”
Justin has said that gaining real life experience while he was in school made him better prepared for life after graduation, and encourages students to do the same.
“Try to do as much as you can, take advantage of every opportunity, because you never know what’s behind a door,” he said.