Name: Amaan Udhas
Year: Senior
Hometown: New York City & Mumbai
Major: Business Admin with a minor in film
What is Orbit Marketplace?
Orbit Marketplace is an app where you can buy and sell things in your city/campus. It is more organized than Northeastern Marketplace and much safer than Craigslist. When you sign up, you get a username, a profile, and add friends. It looks very similar to Instagram, except instead of uploading photos of what you had for brunch on the weekend, you can upload pictures of items you want to sell. You can also search for products and filter it based on miles away, price, category, etc. You can make a Wishlist to save items you like, and if it is too expensive, you can set the feature to match the price you want and Orbit will notify you if the ideal price for that item comes up in your area.
How did you come up with the idea for this app?
One night I was on the phone with one of my best friends from Penn State, who became Orbit’s co-founder with me, and we were talking about how horrible it is to move apartments and that we don’t know what to do with all of our stuff. Tinder had been blowing up at the time and I made a joke that it was easier to find a date in Boston than sell your stuff on a college campus. We, of course, have Northeastern Marketplace, but it can be unprofessional and have trolling, which makes people wary to post. We wanted to create a safe place for selling items, but have it be fun as well. Our hook was to make it social by allowing users to add friends, make wish lists, and like/dislike items that their friends post. Also, like with Instagram, there is a Discover Tab where you can see what is being sold in your area outside of the friends you follow.
Why does Orbit benefit college students, especially at Northeastern?
There are so many things to choose from on Orbit, from furniture, clothing, electronics, textbooks, etc. Instead of just selling, many girls seem to trade clothes instead of purchasing items. I hear some users say it’s so funny that an app helps them share/trade clothes between their friends because they never would have known they owned some of the stuff they post. I’ve seen that college students are definitely a huge demographic of Orbit users since they would benefit the most from what the app has to offer. College students are always on the move, trying to make money, and looking for items they may need. Orbit can be the place to sell your stuff when moving apartments all in your Orbit Store. or the place to find a used textbook for class at a much better price than the bookstore.
How have you grown Orbit from an idea to a company in the past year?
I realized that ideas are worth a dime a dozen and in order to really utilize the resources Northeastern has for start ups and ventures, you need to earn the school’s respect and show your commitment and passion. IDEA, Northeastern’s venture accelerator, was extremely pivotal in helping me develop my idea into something substantial. Our concept and app development started around January 2014. The app is free and within a couple of months we got about 5,000 downloads. At first, we targeted just Boston. However, through word of mouth we have seen many downloads in New York City, Austin and Chicago.
How do you expect Orbit to grow?
I’ve found that majority of the students that I’ve interacted with downloaded Orbit for the concept alone. I haven’t had to spend much on marketing yet. This illustrates a clear need for an easy to use buying and selling app for Millenials. I am currently looking for student ambassadors and interns around college campuses. I have interns from Harvard, Babson, and Northeastern right now. I am looking for students who are looking to help with a strong passion for sales and entrepreneurship. For those interested they can reach out to amaan@orbitmarketplace.com