An Easier Way for Startups to Reach College Students?

[jonlegend]

I randomly had this idea the other day and instead of pursuing it aimlessly I wanted to know if there was a legitimate need for this and if people would actually pay for it.

I have very good connections with student groups and student leaders in colleges all across the United States. The logic was: college students tend to be a great demographic for a lot (not all) startups. They are, in general, young, tech-savy (for the most part), educated, and have a wide social circle.

The idea would be to generate buzz and excitement for startups that we work with on various college campuses across America. I won't go in to too much detail but the result would be direct feedback from random samplings of college students, student held promotional events, and a large influx of college users using your product/service.

Please comment, advise, shut me down, whatever. If you don't think this is a good idea: why not? If you think it is a good idea, how much would you pay for it?

[mattquinn]

As a college student myself, I see/hear many variations of this idea all the time from people. My reaction is the same every time: you are competing for students' time, and they have barely any discretionary amount of it that they'd be willing to spend on things like this. College students eat, sleep, drink, socialize, have jobs, and occasionally study. I'm not sure why people think students will make time for attending product demos and experimenting with new products.

[jonlegend]

Good input. As a college student as well, I wouldn't expect any of my peers to attend something like this for free either.

I believe the key to this, however, lies in a good business model that pays the students for their time and input. Many students are strapped on time, but I'd be willing to wager even more are strapped on cash.

Ultimately, my concern at the moment is not whether students would be interested, but whether startups would be interested. What do you think?

[mattquinn]

Money and college students always mix well, but it doesn't apply to events like this, which classify as thinly veiled marketing, however informative they may end up being.

Even if you pay ppl $15 to sit for an hour, it won't be worth it to you or the startups involved. Why? Because 70% of that audience would be people who would've come out of interest even if you paid them nothing. The other 30% would be ppl in it solely for the money, texting friends or on Facebook.

I trust you've seen the attention span of students during a lecture - the ratio of interested to distracted is even worse. Money doesn't necessarily trump other factors like basic interest level.

[jonlegend]

Great points! This is the type of feedback I was looking for.

[spicyxtreme]

I think that's an excellent idea.. plus it leverages on your existing network of student groups etc.

But I do wonder. 1) how do you plan to incentivize students to provide quality feedback?

Would definitely pay money, even a monthly subscription if the students could be like an idea testing community.

As for how much, really can't tell at the moment. I guess it depends on the quality and quantity of feedback

[kkt262]

Pay them. College students will do anything for money, even if its a small amount. Try out a survey. My campus has a lot of those surveys posted on bulletin boards and usually participants get something like $10 for completing a survey, or even better, they just get an entry into a contest for an Ipad 2 or something.