Anyone who’s ever been involved in an entrepreneurial endeavor knows that having a solid business idea isn’t enough to get it off the ground—you also need commitment. Fortunately, Julienne Lam ‘13, Sam Purtill ‘13 and Gordon Dean’13 have got plenty of commitment, and they are clearly willing to invest it in their project.
Julienne first got her idea from an encounter on Chatroulette, in which she met two surprisingly “nice and non-sketchy guys from USC.” The positive experience inspired her to work on a website where people can go to have good conversations on the internet. She recruited Gordon Dean ‘13 and Charlie Guo ‘13 to help her in the implementation of the project, but things didn’t really take off until Sam joined the team. Sam Purtill, another sophomore on the Farm, had been working for several years on a project of his own which he appropriately named “ClassOwl”-because they give a Hoot and have Owl it takes to succeed.
Sam modestly noted that his project only became real this past December, when he realized his and Julienne’s goals could be aligned. They envisioned the possibility of unifying the campus through both academics and social events, and launched themselves into this new project.
“The problem with the already existing resources is that the information people want is disseminated across too many websites. Facebook , Coursework, Courserank and Gmail are all useful. But it’s impractical to have to pick and choose from so many sources.” The advantage of ClassOwl, Julienne explains, is that it ties together in a simple, cohesive way all aspects of your college life. And this will be even more evident in the coming month, with the launching of ClassOwl’s social tools.
“Soon, you will be able to follow any organization, club, house, dorm, or athletic team on campus, and even have access to major speaker series,” Julienne said.
The website is to become an interface where big and small groups alike can share information with students and enable them to browse upcoming events. And although Sam and Julienne have been discussing the possibility of working in coordination with Stanford’s administration to get data on classes and assignments, the website relies exclusively on students’ input.
“The website is going to be their tool,” Sam explains.
The website launched this past Sunday, and it seems to be catching on very fast. Within the first three hours, ClassOwl already had 400 users — impressive given their only advertisements were through Facebook posts. Julienne explained that the ClassOwl team has been working day and night this past week to continue spreading the word. The team has been advertising mostly through social media like Facebook and twitter, but also has a strong presence on campus through its flyers and the endearing ClassOwl T-Shirts, hooting around campus.
ClassOwl’s future goal is to make it possible for students to meet peers in their class through this website. “
The key is to have people participate and get involved” Julienne said. “We were Coupa Café’s whisper word this week, and have been encouraging people to add things to the website. Someone might even win a date with Sam, here.”
Look out for ClassOwl this week on campus, and check out their website at http://www.classowl.com/