My man Boris hit me up with an idea of how to revolutionize the way we buy textbooks. Take some lessons from this guy’s drive and potential. I realize that this is somewhat of a saturated market – but it’s how you set yourself apart from the competition that will ultimately lead to your success. And this gentleman has an established labor force, target audience, and preliminary marketing campaign. Also, he was nice enough to provide a very professional overview of his background, venture, and vision for the future. Here it is below for your readying pleasure…

About Me:

My experience is based on my observations and real-life experiences throughout my life.  I have worked at jobs like Starbucks, Hollister, and call centers, but none of the jobs gave me truly valuable experience.  My most valuable experience has been from the last year working on Textbreak.  I am the CEO/Founder of Textbreak.com a social networking site for college students to locally exchange their textbooks in combination with their class notes.  I have learned how to bootstrap my way from idea to having a site with 200+ users and 1200 fans on Facebook, all in hopes to create a more valuable Beta site by May.  I also have managed 5 different developers through emails, phone conversations, skype, etc, working through Elance.com and PayPal.  I have found a qualified team consisting of a developer, a paralegal, and a project manager.  I have managed to create a potentially successful business at the age of 21.  That by itself I consider, to a certain extent, a feat.

Besides Textbreak my true experiences lies in understanding people.  This valuable asset allows my creative vision to take great ideas correlate them to my understanding/experience  of/with people, splice them together, and create ‘new’ valuable innovative ideas; potentially successful businesses.  I am personable and capable of speaking in front of, or with, any audience.  I have endless ambition and excellent concentration with a creative touch to tasks at hand, working solely towards success.

Description:

Textbreak is a social networking site for college students to locally exchange textbooks with each other.

Right now users are able to sign up via Facebook Connect, post books, search for books, send messages, and meet up for free.  When the seller enters in the ISBN-10 Textbreak auto-fills the title, author, edition, and displays the picture of the book. The search displays the cheapest price, most relevant, which specific college, and by most recent posting date.  Students can contact the seller directly by clicking “Contact Seller”.  The students can execute the exchange locally, saving time and most likely a significant amount of money, because on Textbreak users can buy, sell, and trade books at student prices.

Our Dream Concept:

Students will sign up via Facebook Connect, a one-click sign up where Textbreak will connect to Facebook and receive the user’s information to create a Textbreak profile.  Users are then introduced to their dashboard where they can search, add books, browse recent history, and view Textbreak suggestions.  In their recent history users can view a current/past tally of exchanges and how much money they have saved.  Students can add their textbooks from their dashboard, students can simply type in the author or title and Textbreak will display the most relevant assortment of options (picture, title, author, edition, price, condition).  After they have verified their unwanted books and the books they need, Textbreak offers a suggestive price point by displaying the cheapest new, used, and rental prices for their specific book while they are entering in their desired price and the current condition of their book.  By using the textbooks users added, Textbreak suggestions will connect users with each other with exchanges that will maximize both users’ savings and display the results on their dashboard.  Users can search and browse through books posted on Textbreak with an added bonus assortment of the cheapest new, used, and rental prices, for the book, on the Internet.  After users have agreed on an exchange, they are allowed one week to communicate via messaging to find a meeting spot.

Our Target Market:

Textbreak seeks students who value immediacy and are looking for an alternative way to exchange textbooks.  Students who want a service that provides a market place which retains the value of their unwanted textbooks.  Students who want a jump start in their upcoming classes by obtaining quality class notes regulated by a rating system.  Students looking for one place where they are guaranteed to find the cheapest price for textbooks on the internet.  Students looking to save and make the most money off textbooks.

Textbreak also seeks individuals that want to make money by becoming a Textbreak Affiliate Partner and receive $1 per person they lead to transact on Textbreak post-trial period.

Our Vision:

From now until the end of the year we will target college students in the greater Chicago-land area.  By the beginning of next year Textbreak seeks to expand to college students in one of the top ten colleges of our choosing.

With research on the users correlated with the patterns of the national textbook industry, Textbreak will concentrate its advertising and expansion according to the metrics accumulated.

We want to be recognized as the possible future of textbook exchange.  The 2.0 of exchanging textbooks.  “This is the way it should have been all along.”  I want people to think about how much money and time they can save and make with Textbreak.

——————————————-

THANK YOU: From the conception of this website, I have gotten a chance to talk with a lot of talented, motivated entrepreneurs. People like Boris are the reason I started this – to network with the next generation of business professionals. Bounce ideas off each other, create valuable relationships. We get a pretty steady stream of e-mails (contact@fratrepreneur.com) of people that run their own business and would like to be featured on our site.

BUT, PAY ATTENTION: If you e-mail me saying your starting the next “juicycampus” or have a way of installing cameras in sorority houses for “voyeur viewing” (no joke, some kid tryed to pitch this to me) – I will laugh, delete your e-mail and flame you publicly on my website. Seriously, what the fuck?