Ready to love what you do and do what you love? Meet Guilherme Laport, the founder of Campus Mio! Aside from doing cross fit and being an avid fan of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Guilherme is completely dedicated to Campus Mio. Calling this project his “baby,” he explains that he loves the creative learning aspect of Campus Mio, which makes him excited to spend hours working on his project. Guilherme’s advice for all you aspiring students is to find what you are passionate about and pursue it in depth because “when you see people using your service and appreciating it, it is a million times more rewarding than a paycheck you get every two weeks at a company.”
Her Campus Emory (HCE): What is Campus Mio and what inspired you to create it?
Guilherme Laport (GL): There is a quote which I really like by the brands and advertisement expert Roberto Duailibi that defines businesses as “a creative solution to an anguish generated by a problem.” As a college freshman, I noticed that college books were really expensive. I could either buy books online, which took time to be shipped and thereby forced me to fall behind in certain classes, or from campus bookstores, which are extremely overpriced. For this reason, I tried to find students on campus who were selling the books I needed. Unfortunately it was really hard to find those students. With this problem in mind, I decided to create a way to allow students to know who was selling what on their respective campuses. Through this idea, students could go to the website, select their college campus, and see everything being sold by other students, such as books, furniture and electronics. Once they find what they are looking for, they can just message the seller (the student) and arrange a pick up time on campus or dorm where the exchange would be done. Since the payment is not done through Campus Mio, there are no fees. Campus Mio is 100% free. Our goal is to get rid of this initial problem that I dealt with in my freshman year, and allow all college students to have quick and cheap access to books.
HCE: What has been the most challenging part of the process?
GL: Even though I am a student at Emory’s Business School, I’ve learned a lot more through Campus Mio than any other class. Theory is one thing, but experience is a complete different story. My main lesson and challenge was to notice that an idea is only 1% of the process. You need a perfect strategy to show people that this product is something they need. I thought that with just a few posts, people would transition from Facebook groups to Campus Mio, but that’s not how things work. It is just like the Dvorak effect. When the Dvorak keyboard was launched it was proven to be a lot better than the Qwerty. Even with evidence that the Dvorak was better, it was hard to make people switch to it because they were already adapted to one. This makes me look more into what students need, and make sure the advertisements are done correctly so that this transition can happen in an efficient fashion.
HCE: How can students get involved?
GL: From a user perspective, if they could just post their products, it would be great. When they need to buy a book, Campus Mio could be the first place to check due to low prices, ability to negotiate, and convenience. In theory, if the cost for books will always be $400 every semester, students can spend $0 on books during their college years if they use Campus Mio. If they spend $400 on books their first semester, and then sell their books, they are back at positive $400. If they do this until they graduate, sell and buy through Campus Mio, students will get to the final step which will be just to sell their books and claim their $400 again, therefore spending no money at all. In order to make this happen, students need to get involved in this “campus exchange” system.