Many of us have used Craigslist to buy and/or sell any number of household items, but a new website by NYU student Ethan Lew called Jigitt brings a similar online marketplace specifically to college campuses. We asked Ethan some questions about his website which has already been rolled out to NYU, Brandeis, Baruch, and UT Austin.
What are you studying at NYU?
I am currently an econ major in CAS, minoring in web design.
How did you come up with the idea for Jigitt?
I
came up with Jigitt, after walking the halls and cafeteria at my old
college, Bates college. I transferred here as a sophomore and brought the
idea with me. I saw that there was a big demand for a platform where
students could buy and sell their used stuff.
Where did the name come from?
Jigitt is a coined term, a word that i made up. I wanted my websites
name to be catchy, short and something a word that could adopt the
definition of my company/
How many people do you have working on the site and do you monitor the posts that are submitted?
I
have 3 other team members working on the site, a developer, designer,
and marketer. Posts are reviewed after they are posted by our team, and
we are currently looking into building a filter for posts to be ready
when traffic on our site builds up.
Jigitt
recently launched at Baruch college and then will expand to other
NYC universities and colleges soon. In about two
months, Jigitt will expand out of New york, starting with California, my
home state where I have many friends and connections who are willing to
help spread the word.
The
biggest challenge we have is getting people to post. Everyone loves
searching but not everyone has the time to post an ad so we are looking
into ways to make the posting process even faster than it already is.
Right now, anyone can create an account and be a part
of the community. Do you have plans to allow access only to students in
the future?
Yes we do! In the near future,
we are going to make some of Jigitt's categories limited to only users
with a NYU email or .edu verification. For example, only NYU students
would be able to view all categories and post in all categories but non
verified users would only be able to post in categories and not view
whats posted by others. This would limit non verified users from seeing
NYU events, parties, and social gatherings that are only intended for
NYU students
The
response has been very positive, with nearly 8,000 visits in less than 3
weeks and over 100 returning visitors every day at least!
Have you been involved with the CAS Entrepreneurship Association? Are
there any other university resources that you have used or plan on
using?
I am
currently getting involved with some of the entrepreneurship centers on
campus, including tech@NYU, and I am going to reach out to CAS
Entrepreneurship Association this week.
How can our alumni help you to spread the word and grow the site?
Alumni can help spread the word by visiting my site, emailing
it to their kids, kids friends, and generally spreading the word by
mouth. I also have a Kickstarter campaign launching soon for
Jigitt as well as a professional video being posted on my campaign to easily explain
my website!
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